All For The Sake Of Peace
by AddictedT0Sleep
Summary: What if the goal of the Akatsuki to create peace in the world remained uncorrupted? What if all of the members were like Itachi in that they became sacrificial lambs for their villages? It's a crappy summary but whatever. NarufemItachi pairing. Rated M for some cursing.
1. Chapter 1: Capture

Chapter 1: Capture

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything associated to it (obviously)

'Here is the room key. Go up to your room and refine your chakra as training'

The blonde genin got on the bed and decided to try and follow his master's instruction. Despite his master undoubtedly off having fun doing his "questionable activities", Naruto decided to try and follow the instructions given to him. Making his signature hand sign, Naruto created two shadow clones and started molding chakra. As expected, due to his massive reserves the fox whiskered genin struggled to mold chakra effectively.

As Naruto continued to use circulate his chakra with the delicacy of an ox, he grew increasingly frustrated. Not surprising since he has the patience of a goldfish when doing anything besides physical activity.

"Arrrgh, What is that Ero-sennin thinking? How will this ever let me use a super cool jutsu in the future?"

Naruto was incredibly excited to be given a mission out to retrieve this woman. Not because he wanted to meet the woman, but because that Ero-sennin promised to teach him a jutsu even cooler than the **Chidori**. Instead of teaching him anything, the tall white haired man left the young boy alone to meditate and work on his chakra manipulation.

Jiraiya leaving Naruto time alone was actually a mistake for the young boy. Too much time gave the young genin an opportunity think, and thinking was a bad thing for Naruto's mood. His Jiji's death hit him hard and he still hadn't had time to grieve. Not that Naruto wanted to grieve, in fact he had immersed himself in constant training to avoid all thoughts of his grandfather figure. Now that Naruto was given time to think the pain washed over him.

The wall of grief that hit the young boy was stifling. He became unable to breathe as he slipped closer and closer to the darkness pulling at him.

His Jiji, the one who had first acknowledged him, the one who had kept him alive by providing him money, the one who had cared for him like his own grandson, the one who had comforted him after receiving the constant mental torture of a village scorning him, was dead. He was gone, never again to take a puff from his pipe, smile and smack Naruto on the head for whatever prank he had done, lovingly of course. His Jiji, the invincible man who constantly droned on and on about his "will of fire", was never again to be in the young genin's life.

This fact crashed like the waves in Naruto's mind, constantly battering him over and over again. The darkness started invading all of his thoughts and started infecting him like a poison. Naruto felt empty, his soul needing respite from the darkness, yet finding none.

Tears started falling down his face as he started crying silently, mouthing "Jiji" over and over again. Later, When his crying had subsided, Naruto figured it had been about half an hour since he had started breaking down.

Quickly, Naruto put his mask on again. The same mask that he had mastered years ago due to the constant hate thrown at him. It served him well in fooling others of his mental state. Naruto, when depressed, could hide behind his mask of extroversion that he shows to the world. This way, Naruto can avoid causing his few remaining precious people to worry about him. Though since his Jiji's death, Naruto is starting to feel the darkness slipping through the mask.

Naruto was starting to fear his new master would start seeing through his act.

Jiraiya's POV:

As Jiraiya was going on his date through the town with the random woman he had just met, his thoughts were on one person: his godson. Jiraiya was starting to get worried about him, both physically and mentally.

Jiraiya knew the Akatsuki was going to eventually be after the young blonde due to his permanent tenant. What worried Jiraiya though, was the fact that his spy network had caught wind of movements from the rogue elite ninja group. He knew he wouldn't have much time to train the boy before he would meet dangerous situations.

Jiraiya wasn't worried about that though. He had taught the yondaime personally and knew that his son had even more drive to be strong than his father. And while not a genius like his father, Jiraiya knew the boy would become great.

What Jiraiya was really worried about was the boy's mental state. He tried to fool Jiraiya, but Jiraiya knew from his experience with Tsunade when someone was in pain. Jiraiya thought back to his earlier encounter with the boy.

Flashback:

 _Jiraiya sat on the grass in front of the shrine as a constant cool breeze sweeped through the area. He watched as his idiot disciple messed with the bells on the shrine and received divine punishment when they fell on him. The master laughed at this as he remembered his own antics when he was younger._

" _Be careful Gaki, you already have too few brain cells as it is, you don't need to lose anymore," teased the older man._

" _Shut up Ero-sennin, at least I use the head on my shoulders, unlike you who only uses the head in your pants," retorted said gaki._

" _You do know that you are talking to the great toad sage, the ladies-man known throughout the elemental nations, the great Jiraiya-sama."_

" _I doubt that you're really that great. A great person wouldn't peek on ladies taking a bath, or randomly push his student off a cliff for that matter," grumbled Naruto before giving his new master the cheekiest grin possible._

" _I'll have you know that I am one of the sennin personally taught by the sandaime, and I personally taught the yondaime," Jiraiya said with obvious hurt pride._

 _At the mention of the deceased Hokage, Naruto's grin faded and that all light appeared to leave his eyes. Naruto's eyes, usually a deep blue that hold a pure joy, seemed to turn into a bluish gray full of hurt. This quickly disappeared and was replaced with his usual grin, but the light never returned to his eyes._

 _Naruto tried to keep the banter going but Jiraiya could tell something was wrong. He had seen that cover up of emotions done with Tsunade whenever the topic of Dan or Nawaki was brought up. It wasn't natural and Jiraiya knew he would have to get Naruto to open up by the time they brought Tsunade back._

Present:

Jiraiya had an inkling of an idea of what was bothering his godson based on what caused the reaction, but knew it wasn't his business to force the conversation so blatantly. He would have to be subtle, but not too subtle since Naruto is inept when it comes to subtlety. His bright orange jumpsuit was a testament to that.

Jiraiya decided after awhile to ditch his companion, since she was obviously a trap from the beginning. Jiraiya went on his way back to the hotel with a new resolve. This resolve was to help this gaki that had managed to be endearing to the toad sage, despite his cheeky attitude.

On the way back he caught a glimpse of a short boy that he could tell was a ninja based on his chakra. The dark clothed boy was running frantically around like a chicken with its head cut off. When he turned, Jiraiya noticed it was the Uchiha brat.

Jiraiya had always thought the boy had more than just a stick up his ass and consequently disliked the village's favorite over rated ninja. Jiraiya decided to go the long way to the hotel to avoid the annoying brat.

As he was two blocks from the hotel, Jiraiya looked up and saw dark clouds in the horizon. Shrugging, the white haired man walked into the hotel and froze when he did a quick search of the chakra in the area.

Naruto POV:

Half an Hour Earlier:

Naruto heard a knock on the door that shook him from his depressing thoughts. Realizing that it was Jiraiya back from his "escapades with various women", Naruto wiped his eyes and put his leaf headband back on. Jiraiya kept on knocking and it was irritating Naruto to no end.

"yes, yes, shut up I'm coming you pervert"

Naruto opened the door and the only thing he could see was red and black. He was staring into red eyes with three black tomoe.

As Naruto moved his eyes to look at the possessor of these eyes, his first thought was thatthe girl he was looking at was stunning. She had smooth skin with just the perfect complexion and raven black hair that was probably the silkiest looking hair he had ever seen. What struck him the most however were her eyes, not just the color, but the fact that her eyes held a deep sadness that rivaled his without his mask.

His second thought was that she was scary as fuck. Although she wasn't tall, she still managed to tower over the tiny genin, leaving an imposing sight in his eyes. He was further intimidated by the chakra pressure she was exerting on him. It made breathing hard and moving practically impossible. Even Orochimaru's killing intent paled in comparison to this. He realized that her eyes were type of **Sharingan** more powerful than the teme's. Despite Naruto's confidence in his abilities, he knew she could kill him hundreds of different ways with each of them taking no more than an instant.

She was beautiful and deadly, the type of woman all kunoichi aspire to be.

"Could this child really be the nine-tails jinchuriki?" The voice of a man snapped Naruto out of his awkward staring. Standing behind the woman was a tall man that Naruto hadn't even noticed yet.

The man was incredibly tall and looked more like beast than man. He had blue skin and had teeth and gills like a shark. On his back was what looked like a sword wrapped in bandages. His chakra was so massive that it rivaled Naruto's own reserves. All in all, he scared the piss out of Naruto.

"How do you know I have that damn fox in me?" The blonde asked. Naruto then face-palmed when he realized what he had just told these sketchy individuals.

"Naruto-kun we would like you to come with us. We have something you might be interested in", the woman informed him in an emotionless voice.

All of a sudden Naruto noticed a dull pain in the back of his head, but decided to ignore it since he had more pressing issues.

Had Naruto not been scared out of his mind, he would have thought that her voice, despite being emotionless, was entrancing. However, he was currently trying not to break down under the pressure from just the chakra in the air surrounding the two.

"Could you please leave the room?" The woman said and Naruto could tell it was not a request.

"Izumi-san we should cut his leg off to help keep him from escaping, I'm sure Zetsu could grow him another one if need be," said the unknown shark man.

Before he could protest he heard the woman whose name was apparently Izumi say, "It sure has been a while, Sasuke."

Naruto turned to see his rival Sasuke in the middle of the hall staring down the woman with pure hate in his eyes. Naruto had only seen that much hate in those onyx eyes once before. It scared him even more.

"Uchiha…Izumi," Sasuke said voice straining with anger.

Naruto just noticed the konoha headband with a scratch down the center on the woman's head.

"I will…kill you," Sasuke activated his two-tomoed sharingan and prepared to fulfill his life mission of killing his sister and avenging his deceased clan.

"Hey Izumi if you killed all of the Uchihas, how is there still someone who can use the **Sharingan** besides you?" the shark man asked.

"Simple. I killed all but one. My little brother," the woman said calmly.

Apparently this got under Sasuke's skin as he said, "I have lived, hating you all this time. Using that to become stronger, just for this day," the young Uchiha started yelling as he started gathering chakra for his attack.

The young avenger started charging at his older sister with **Chidori** in hand, the lightning dancing all through the hallway. Sasuke advanced on his sister at an incredibly high speed. The technique created an explosion in the hall and left Naruto unable to see the result.

Naruto was stunned to see a massive hole in the wall and Izumi's hand on Sasuke's wrist. Naruto was amazed that she could deflect a technique that fast while making it look effortless.

Izumi then grabbed Sasuke by the throat and threw him violently against the wall and coldly said, "Looks like your hate wasn't strong enough," before unleashing her own jutsu, the **Tsukuyomi**.

At this Naruto unfroze and started gathering chakra to get in on the fight. The shark man was too quick when he used his sword and ate Naruto's chakra. "The Samehada eats up chakra, I'm afraid you are out of luck in this fight," the shark man taunted.

Naruto was desperate. He couldn't use ninjutsu due to Samehada, and he knew he would lose a taijutsu fight within seconds just like Sasuke, he was boned. Plus that dull ache in the back of his head was starting to hurt more and started affecting his already limited thinking ability.

The shark man slowly walked up to him, sword raised, hoping to incapacitate him in order to capture him. As he brought his sword down, Naruto winced expecting pain and was surprised when there was none.

Standing in front of Naruto was a large toad with shields on his arms blocking the sword strike. Behind Naruto was a sight he thought he would never miss, his master Ero-sennin.

"You underestimate me. I can tell when you use a girl to try to lure me away from the gaki. You clearly underestimated the man that women flock to, the man that all adore, the man that is known as the great Jiraiya-sama"

"Hey Ero-sennin! How long did you fool around with that lady before coming over here?" The blonde tried to retort but couldn't help but sound weak due to the increasing pain in his head.

"So it's the legendary Jiraiya, it is a pleasure to meet you, I can't believe the distraction of a woman almost defeated you though," the shark man said completely calm despite knowing the reputation of the man before him.

"Kisame, it would not be wise to fight Jiraiya while trying to extract the jinchuriki, I suggest we leave and strike again later," the elder Uchiha suggested.

"Good idea Izumi-chan," at that name, Izumi gave him a glare that let him know he would be getting it later.

Before they could get farther, Jiraiya carried out his jutsu to stop them, " **NInpou: Gamasuchi Shibari** (toad mouth bind)" At this the walls, floors, and ceiling turned into a toad's stomach.

The walls were closing in on the two Akatsuki members as they tried to flee. Jiraiya was happy that his jutsu was working but knew not to underestimate the mastermind of the Uchiha massacre and one of the previous seven swordsmen of Kirigakure.

What Jiraiya was not expecting was for the two Akatsuki to vanish in thin air, escaping both the jutsu and Jiraiya sending a **Katon: Endan** (Fire Style: Flame Bullet). He was disappointed, but he had to make sure the gaki was safe and couldn't pursue them.

Naruto went to check on Sasuke because while he didn't know what jutsu was used on him, he knew it was bad business. Before he could get too far in examining his rival he heard a loud voice saying "Dynamic entry," Naruto turned to see Gai-sensei making his less than stereotypical entrance into the hallway. The green spandex-clad ninja kicked Jiraiya in the process, greatly annoying the toad-sannin.

"Was that necessary Gai?" the annoyed white haired man snarled as the tall white man towered over the jonin, his killing intent making the eccentric man shrivel under his gaze.

"I'm sorry Jiraiya-sama, I used my headband as a mirror and could not see clearly, my youthfulness was not enough it seems, I'll do three thousand one-fingered pull-ups to make up for it," Gai said finishing this with fire in his eyes.

Jiraiya face-palmed at the stupidity of this man as he sighed, "fine, we just need to get the Uchiha brat some medical attention and finish our mission," Gai nodded at this and took a glance at the young genin.

"Whoever did this to him must have been very unyouthful indeed," Gai said shaking his head in sympathy. The young genin looked like he had better days. Sasuke's face was bruised and had drool running from the corners of his mouth. His eyes had a dead look that only seemed to belong in a graveyard.

To this Jiraiya just grunted as he lifted the brat and handed him to Gai, "take him to Konoha," he said, then gestured to the blonde genin that seemed dazed, "Come on Gaki, let's get a move on, if we hurry up I might teach you a super cool jutsu," to this the blonde barely responded, which worried the man.

Naruto heard none of the conversation between Gai and Jiraiya, he was too focused on the pain assaulting his brain. He had never experienced a pain this excruciating, it felt like a spike was going through his skull. His vision was focusing in and out, white flashes were disorienting the boy.

All of a sudden, the pain stepped up to a new level, a feat Naruto didn't know was possible. At this, Naruto couldn't hold back the scream building in his throat.

"ARGHHHHHHH," Naruto's scream of pure pain made both Jiraiya and Gai shiver. Both shinobi looked at the young blonde genin with looks full of confusion and worry.

Naruto started feeling his consciousness slipping away from him. His eyes were growing heavy and he was struggling to keep them open. As he felt his consciousness leaving him, he was closing his eyes and saw the look of worry from his master.

Naruto opened his eyes to find himself feeling comfortable and safe. The pain in his head was gone, as if it had never been there.

He looked around and saw that he was in a simple room with few amenities, there. He saw light come in through the open window that was across from the bed he was laying on. The warm breeze flowed through the room, creating a peaceful atmosphere. Naruto sighed happily and smiled.

The smile left his face though when he noticed that his wrists were tied. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as panic flowed through him. Naruto's eyes darted back and forth, taking in anything that could be used to get out of this situation.

All of a sudden the door opened, revealing a woman wearing a dark cloak with clouds on it. He looked into her onyx eyes and immediately knew the situation he was in. He vocalized his only thought at the time.

"Well fuck."

Jiraiya POV:

Present time

Jiraiya took a quick scan of the chakra in the area as he entered the hotel and was shocked by what he found. Or to be precise, what he didn't find: a certain blonde knuckleheaded ninja.

Jiraiya was usually able to sense someone with as much chakra as the Gaki from a mile away. This meant that Naruto was either miles away or had magically become a master at hiding his chakra. And Jiraiya doubted that one.

He quickly calmed down though, he realized Naruto must have just gone out after getting bored. He was going to have to hit the lovable idiot later for worrying.

As Jiraiya walked through the hallway, he noticed that the door to their hotel room was open. Each step he took heightened his dread of what could have happened for the door to be left open.

As he got to the doorway he noticed something on the ground. It was a headband, Naruto's headband to be exact. On it was the Konoha leaf with a scratch through it. Next to it, he noticed blood on the floorboard.

"Well fuck," little did he know that he said the exact same thing as his student.


	2. Chapter 2: Shit Happens In Konoha

I just wanted to say that the number of views I got surprised me. Please review since I am a very inexperienced author. I would like to know if I am heading in the right direction with the story. Please ignore my grammar (or lack thereof). I hope you enjoy the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything associated to him (obviously)

Chapter 2: Shit Happens in Konoha:

Jiraiya POV:

Jiraiya entered through the gates of Konoha with a deep frown making the chunin guards wonder just what happened. Jiraiya looked around at the sight of Konoha as he walked through the same gates he had left just three weeks ago. It hadn't changed at all. It was midday, shops and vendors lined the streets. Families and groups of friends walked together trying to enjoy their day off. Sounds of intense training could be heard in the distance.

But for Jiraiya, everything had changed. The village was now without its number one knuckle-headed ninja. Now there wasn't a single person that was worth a damn in this village. 'And it's my fault,' the tall white-haired man kept thinking to himself. Jiraiya had grieved when Minato died. And despite his idiotic nature, the man had seen bits of Minato in Naruto. So losing Naruto felt like his loss of Minato all over again.

Jiraiya felt personally responsible for his failure to Naruto. It was his job to protect him outside of the village. He hadn't been there in the Kyuubi attack to make sure Naruto had his father to raise him. He hadn't been there for Naruto for the first twelve years of his life. He hadn't been there to protect him from the hate of those bastard villagers. He hadn't been there to teach him anything like a godfather should have done. He hadn't been there for Naruto when he got kidnapped and probably killed. 'For God's sakes when have I ever been there when I'm needed somewhere!' the man exclaimed in his mind.

Suddenly, an ANBU agent appeared in front of the toad-sannin, shaking him from his thoughts. "Go tell the council that there needs to be an emergency meeting in an hour, if it takes any longer I'll make you train with Gai as a punishment," the Sannin ordered making the ANBU agent shudder at the inhumanity of the threat.

"Hai Jiraiya-sama," the ANBU said before hauling ass to make sure he didn't have to suffer through that torture.

Before Jiraiya went to the council, he had a duty that he would rather not fulfill. He headed to a certain ramen shop knowing the next few minutes would be difficult.

He saw both of the members of the Ichiraku family were working at the shop that day. He sighed, he always hated this part of being a shinobi, even more than the killing.

The ramen maker noticed him and greeted the well-known Sannin, "Hello Jiraiya-sama, what can I do for you? How was your trip?"

Jiraiya's face visibly darkened at the mention of the fateful trip. Jiraiya frowned, not knowing what words to say that would limit the pain to the people who were like family to the young blonde. "H-he…" Jiraiya cleared his throat, tears threatening to form. "N-Naruto, he's gone," the man finally got out.

Ayame Ichiraku stood not understanding what he meant, "When is he coming back?"

Her father however, understood the harsh realities of the ninja world and immediately grew somber. "He's not," Teuchi Ichiraku said putting a hand on his daughter's shoulder.

She immediately burst into tears as her father comforted over the loss of her little brother in all but blood.

Jiraiya walked away. He couldn't be in their presence any longer. His grief was stifling to him, making it hard to breathe. He had failed not only Naruto and Minato, but them too. His list kept growing.

Shikaku POV:

Shikaku was sitting in the council room having been called to the emergency meeting twenty minutes earlier. He had asked the ANBU of the purpose of the meeting but received just a shake of the head. The ANBU quickly went to fulfill his mission muttering things like, 'running out of time' and 'damn spandex'.

Shikaku watched as all the other members entered the room. The shinobi council, comprised of Hiashi Hyuuga, Tsume Inuzuka, Choza Akimichi, Shibi Aburame, and himself, sat on one side of the room. While the civilian council (Shikaku and the author thought it was too troublesome to learn their names) sat on the opposite side. The council elders were in the center of the council room.

Shikaku noticed Jiraiya standing by the window looking out at Konoha. The other members of the council were too busy discussing the possible contents of the meeting to notice him, but Shikaku was studying him. Jiraiya looked sad, borderline depressed, as he looked out at the Yondaime's monument. This worried Shikaku as he came up with the possibilities of the cause of the depressed toad sannin. Especially since Shikaku hadn't seen Jiraiya like that since the death of his student.

'Some serious shit went down on Jiraiya's mission to bring Tsunade, this is too damn troublesome,' thought the lazy shinobi.

When Jiraiya cleared his throat all of the attention in the room focused on the white haired man. Many hadn't noticed him and gasped suddenly at the unexpected call to attention.

"I called this meeting in order to inform you of two separate but connected incidents on my mission to retrieve Tsunade," most of the councilors nodded at this, unprepared for what Jiraiya was about to tell them. However, both Shikaku and Danzo's minds were already jumping ahead predicting what the toad-sannin would talk about. This caused one man to visibly grimace and another one to smirk inside his mind. One can easily guess which man did which action.

"The first incident occurred the day that Naruto and I left," many from the civilian side started mumbling about the 'demon brat' when hearing his name. Jiraiya was too caught up in the guilt of what he was about to say to reprimand them, "I had left the Gaki to train on his own, when I returned to the hotel his chakra signature had disappeared. Then, when I got to the room the door was open and only a Konoha headband with a scratch through it was left," the man said at barely a whisper in volume, "and some blood," he added at such a low volume that Shikaku had to strain to hear.

A blanket of silence fell over the room.

This information caused a mixture of reactions from the council. The civilian side could barely suppress their grins. Due to their lack of knowledge in how sealing worked, they had never been willing to see Naruto as more than the beast inside. A few were even muttering things in their mind like, 'Finally!' and 'There is a God!'.

The shinobi side had a very different reaction; they mourned the loss of a comrade. Even if Shikaku barely knew the boy personally, he had watched Naruto reach for his dream despite facing prejudice. Even Hiashi thought the boy was a shinobi, "one who endures", in the truest sense. 'This doesn't deserve to happen to a twelve year old boy, ninja or not,' they collectively thought.

Danzo was also mourning, albeit for a different reason. The village had lost a valuable military asset in the blonde jichuriki. Now the other nations would have a leg up on the village of Konoha if a war were to break out. Danzo silently cursed, all the while maintaining his outward stoic appearance.

"Dammit Jiraiya-sama, you had one fucking job," the Inuzuka head lashed out in pain from the loss, accusing the Sannnin. If Shikaku didn't see Jiraiya, a man who had skirted death thousands of times in war, visibly cringe from the accusation, it would have been funny. The troublesome woman had managed to try to show respect to and curse out someone in the same sentence.

"I immediately used my **Summoning Jutsu** to get the toads to start a search within a one hundred mile radius, then I asked all of my contacts in my spy network for any information on the Gaki's whereabouts," the man continued in his report trying to move on from the accusation. "I continued this for three weeks, continually increasing my search area. Yet after all that time, I found no sign of him."

Shikaku had to begrudgingly give the captors respect, to capture a Jinchuriki without leaving even a trace, outside of a headband and some blood, was plain miraculous. This left only one group to be able to pull this off. "Akatsuki," Shikaku whispered.

Jiraiya apparently heard him and grimly nodded, "that's what I suspect too, only they could pull off a capture of a jinchuriki and be able to move so fast without leaving a trace," he admitted. "I even think they left the headband and blood on purpose in order to gloat."

This left silence in the room, which was broken by someone from the civilian council, "Fine, they can have the demon child. Good riddance, I'll say."

Shikaku just face-palmed, 'Damn troublesome civilians don't know when to shut up.' The man who had said this suddenly paled at the combined killing intent from five shinobi. Four of the clan heads and Jiraiya leveled all their killing intent at the man causing the whole civilian side to start freaking out. Shikaku thought it was too troublesome and decided to let the others take care of it.

Danzo cleared his throat, "If I may?" the bandaged man asked and waited for any dissent. Seeing none he continued, "The jinchuriki being lost is a huge loss to the village and we must try and retrieve him to the best of our abilities," the man said causing nods of assent from the shinobi side. The civilian side was still recovering.

He continued, "However, we must not send any ninja in the search effort, so that we do not lose any more ninja," this caused scowls from the ninja side and nods from the now recovered civilians.

"Therefore, I suggest that only ninja dogs be used in the search effort, Tsume-san, I suggest you lead in that effort, and Jiraiya I suggest that you be prohibited from searching since we need you now that the village has been weakened," all but Shikaku and Jiraiya nodded at this.

Shikaku started thinking about the proposal and saw that on the surface it sounded like a good idea. However, it was an idea that wouldn't work. The ninja dogs may be great trackers, but they needed to be within a certain distance of their owners. Since ninjas aren't supposed to be looking for Naruto, they are restrained to the village. That means the dogs are limited in their search radius to fifty miles around the village. Naruto couldn't possibly be within that area since not even the toads found him there. Shikaku figured Tsume didn't realize this due to her wanting to cling on to any hope of finding the blonde. This would fail before it starts, Shikaku realized. He didn't want to say anything since it was more of a hunch than anything else.

Jiraiya disliked the idea for a different reason. Jiraiya figured out the problems with the plan within seconds. But what gave him the chills is that Danzo seemed to care about Naruto's wellbeing. He knew that wasn't the case since Danzo sees others as tools. Jiraiya figured that alongside his 'plan', Danzo would send his ROOT agents to find Naruto and brainwash him into joining Danzo's corrupt organization.

Jiraiya was right on the money. Danzo was already planning on how to best turn the boy into a living weapon.

Homura, who was uncharacteristically quiet this meeting, decided to move the meeting along, "What was the second incident Jiraiya-kun?" The two other elders had actually been grieving the loss of their old teammate and now wanted the best for the village. Shikaku had noticed the radical change from their usual backstabbing nature a few weeks ago.

Jiraiya knew what was about to happen the second that he opened his mouth, "I was unable to convince Tsunade-hime to become the Godaime Hokage," he said feeling defeated for more than the first time that day.

To this, the entire council was in an uproar about: what to do? Why did she say no? Who should be the Hokage? Everyone argued and no one agreed on anything.

Danzo slammed his cane on the ground to regain control of the room. Little did everyone know, Danzo held the closest thing to a smile he had ever had on his face.

Before Danzo could nominate himself for the role Hiashi put his own opinion in, "I think Kakashi should be elected to the position of Hokage," he said formally.

This once again caused a flurry of arguments and Danzo once again took control by flashing his chakra. "Kakashi, while undeniably skilled, is currently incapacitated and we need someone who can take control immediately. Besides, his mental state is shoddy at best," the old man reasoned. No one could deny what he said.

He continued, "I would nominate Jiraiya based on his skills alone, however his morals and recent failure call into question his leadership ability," Jiraiya wanted to argue but they were valid points, "therefore, I humbly nominate myself to the position of Hokage."

Shikaku narrowed his eyes at the dirty weasel. 'So this is what he was playing at,' the lazy jonin thought. Shikaku disliked the old warhawk but could not think of a valid point that would work in preventing the man from becoming Hokage.

"It would make sense, since he was an equal to the Sandaime," piped up Choza. Shikaku had to bite his tongue to keep from yelling at his best friend for being an idiot.

They came to a vote and all but two approved of Danzo as Hokage, making him the Godaime (you can guess which two). Danzo smirked through the entire process.

Shikaku left the meeting immediately, returning home with a bad taste in his mouth. His wife was going to kill him for letting this happen.

"Everyone's so damn troublesome."

Jiraiya POV:

A month later:

Jiraiya walked through the street sullenly, something that seemed to becoming a habit for the aging man. In exact contrast to the man, the streets were bustling with last minute preparations for the ceremony today.

When the decision of the instatement of Danzo as Hokage was announced to the villagers, they were filled with hope for the first time since the Sound Invasion. They took to the task of preparing for the ceremony of instating the Hokage with gusto. Banners of Konoha's symbol could be seen everywhere, even more vendors filled the streets than usual, and everyone could be seen with a smile on their face.

All of it served as a constant reminder for the Sannin of his failure. He had an opportunity to not only convince Tsunade to become Hokage, but when he failed to do that, he couldn't prevent a war hungry sleezeball from becoming the next Hokage.

If only he hadn't failed the Gaki. The blonde could have certainly convinced Tsunade to change her mind. He had a charisma about him that could sway the hearts of anyone. Hell, he could probably convince a bitter enemy to give up fighting against him. Jiraiya chuckled at the thought of Naruto beating strong opponents without using any jutsu, what would he call it? Probably the **Talk no Jutsu** , Jiraiya laughed at the absurdity of it. In a parallel universe that might work.

Jiraiya walked slowly to the village center where the ceremony would be held in half an hour. He was in no rush despite being the officiator of it. When he finally reached the Hokage tower roof it was five minutes before the ceremony.

"Jiraiya-kun, where have you been?" asked a worried Koharu.

"I got lost on the road of life," the Sannin said seriously. He heard a sneeze from the hospital.

Koharu just ignored this since she knew what her teammate's student was going through.

Jiraiya walked up to the edge and conducted the uneventful ceremony quickly and presented the new Hokage to the village.

Danzo walked up in his new Hokage robes and Kage hat and addressed his people, "Thank you people of Konoha," to this the crowd went wild. When it died down Danzo continued, "As Hokage, I would like to make some immediate changes to the village," this caused Jiraiya to justifiably worry for the future.

"The recent attack on Konoha made one thing apparent to me, as it should to you. We are weak. We used to be feared. No nation would even think of attacking us without allying itself with multiple villages. Now we are so weak as to be attacked by a single tiny nation*. We need to address this or else the future for our children looks grim," he paused to breathe.

"I propose the following changes to make ourselves the most feared nation in the Elemental Nations: firstly, our education system needs a massive overhaul. We will lower the age of graduation to nine, while making the curriculum more intense. I will go into more details later but let's just say that students will learn the **Henshin** , **Bunshin** , and **Kawarimi** in the first month. I will also eliminate the use of D-rank missions."

Jiraiya was outraged. Danzo is trying to create child soldiers, the one thing the Shodaime fought to stop during the clan wars.

"Next, we will cut off all relations with other Hidden Villages. If we continue to rely on others, we will just become weak when they come in the middle of the night to slit our throats. We will not try to search for the pipedream known as peace, instead we will subdue all others through military force, creating our own peace."

Jiraiya was starting to sweat, this man was declaring war on the world. And the crowd was loving it, they ate every word of it up. They wanted their country to be strong again no matter what. A certain Uchiha was even uncharacteristically enthusiastic about this idea.

"Finally, I am declaring Martial law on Konoha until further notice. I am also getting rid of the council," this outraged the council members. "I am relieving the council members from a job well done, I am doing this all for the sake of peace," Danzo said trying to placate the strongest members of the village. "These changes must be made so that there will be no hesitation when orders come. That is because hesitation kills, as the Sandaime-sama found. We must not let the lessons of his sacrifice go to waste. He would have wanted this for Konoha. Furthermore…"

Jiraiya heard no more of this speech, as he was already halfway out of Konoha by this point. He couldn't do this anymore. He had sat by too many times while others controlled the situation around him. He had let an unknown man come in and take the love of his life. He had let his student die. He had let his sensei get killed by his own teammate. He had let his godson get kidnapped by a criminal organization. And now, he let a man turn his village into its own Goddamn belligerent nation.

He was done watching from the sidelines. He was going to at least succeed in one thing: stopping this son of a bitch.

Jiraiya left the gates of Konoha and took off his leaf headband. He vowed to not put it back on until that monster was stopped. Jiraiya was going to use his spy network to turn all of the other villages into a massive alliance to make Konoha's situation hopeless. By then, they might listen to reason and the loss of countless lives might be saved.

Jiraiya headed to his first destination in creating this shinobi alliance: Sunagakure.

Chapter end

*I wanted to make it so that only Sound attacked Konoha not the Sand as well. This achieves two things 1. The people of Konoha might be more willing to listen to Danzo's drastic changes and 2. So that Sunagakure still treats Gaara like crap for reasons that will be used later

A/N: I'm sorry the first two chapters have been mostly setup, next chapter will be Naruto meeting the Akatsuki, it was just necessary for the overarching plot. I hope you enjoyed this chapter I wanted to address three things Jiraiya, Konoha, and Danzo. In canon Jiraiya constantly was never there when he was needed and this kind of ruined the situations around him and his loved ones (don't hate me I love Jiraiya too but I just wanted to point that out and expand on it in this fic). I didn't want to make him an antagonist so I had him leave Konoha, I will not be covering things from his point of view since he had his enlightenment already, but I will cover his impact from events that he causes. Second, Konoha's army will be made mostly of protagonists from canon, they will not be evil in this fic, only forced to follow orders that they don't want to follow. So don't hate me if your favorite character is an "antagonist" because they aren't. Finally, Danzo may be a war loving backstabbing bastard but he truly believes he does it for the "sake of peace" (I hope you noticed that allusion to the title since that is going to be the overarching theme, everyone is motivated by their vision of how to achieve that peace, you will see Akatsuki's version next chapter) because of this I wanted to make a Danzo that is so radical that his opinion makes sense which is possibly the most terrifying version of insanity. As they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.


	3. Chapter 3: Meeting The Family

Thanks for reading, hopefully you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto (obviously)

Chapter 3: Meeting The Family

Naruto looked at the onyx eyed woman that was standing in the doorway with mouth open wide. He noticed that she was not wearing her Akatsuki cloak and instead was wearing ANBU-style pants and a black shirt with what looked like a mesh shirt underneath. Without the cloak, Naruto could tell that the woman had a lean figure with lithe muscles that were perfect for speed. Her kunai holster was strapped to her leg with a short sword strapped to her back. Her headband with the scratch through it was hanging around her neck. Her shoulder length hair was tied in a loose ponytail. She was carrying a tray with breakfast on it.

Panic filled Naruto's veins. Despite how beautiful she looked, she knew he could be killed on a whim. Especially since his wrists and ankles were still bound to the bed he was laying on. Despite already looking around, instincts told Naruto to strain to scan the room for escape. The two exits were the door and the open window. He knew that the door would end poorly since Izumi was blocking it. And even if he could manage to get the restraints off and get out the window, he knew he wouldn't get far. Naruto decided to wait and hope for the long shot chance that he can find an opportunity.

Naruto decided to continue playing the idiot everyone perceives him to be and started struggling heavily with the bindings. At seeing this display Izumi gave a sigh. "I know you're not an idiot Naruto-kun," the woman said after a few minutes of watching him make a fool of himself.

Naruto mask came off immediately. His eyes lost all life in them as he stared at her. "When?" he asked the vague question softly.

Izumi frowned at the vagueness of the question of the boy, "When did I capture you or when did I see through your stupidity?" she asked not knowing which of those two it could be.

"Both," he said simply.

"The second you opened the door and looked into my eyes I had put you under a Genjutsu," she explained, "I let you see a realistic situation and incapacitated you while Kisame and I took you. "

Naruto wanted to hit himself for his stupidity, but he couldn't since his wrists are bound. He should have been more careful, he knew people were after him, yet he was as careless and useless as Sakura. Now he was stuck in a room with one of the worst traitors of Konoha. Just thinking about someone betraying Konoha left a bitter taste in his mouth. He instantly disliked her because of this.

"As for the second question, I have known you use your mask since early childhood, I was one of the ANBU that took care of you," she explained. What she didn't say was that she had respect for the boy. She felt that despite the rough atmosphere he had growing up, he had the strongest will of fire she had seen.

Naruto simply nodded, still aware of his precarious position. He knew this woman had little to no conscience and had no qualms with killing. He guessed that he was at some Akatsuki hideout, but had no idea where. He also surmised that they wanted him for the stupid fox inside of him. But since the information he had was limited, he was clueless as to any more important information.

"What are you going to do to me?" he asked the older woman. He figured that she might answer him since she had answered his other question. Izumi entered the room and closed the door.

Having seen most of his childhood from the outside, Izumi knew how broken he was. She had wanted to help him then, but the Sandaime gave specific orders not to interfere or else he will know he was being watched. The Sandaime's reasoning was that the child would feel that they didn't trust him and see himself as a monster. Izumi personally disagreed with this order, since it was stupid reasoning. However, her responsibility as an ANBU prevented her from disobeying orders.

Now, however, there was no Sandaime around and she could be there for the blonde like she wanted.

Said blonde didn't know this or her. He only knew that Sasuke hated her, she was dangerous, and she would probably kill him.

To his question she gave him a small smile as she pulled up a chair next to his bed and placed the tray on her lap. "I'm going to be feeding you breakfast, that's what Naruto-kun," she said as she picked up the spoon on the tray and scooped up a mouthful of scrambled eggs. "Here comes the train," she teased the blonde.

If there was anything that Naruto hated more than Sasuke's stuck up attitude, it was being treated like a child. But since he was tied up and needed his strength for his chance to escape, Naruto decided to play along. He still glared at her the whole time though.

Izumi obviously took great joy in teasing him since she gave an almost silent giggle when he ate the food in her spoon like it was poisonous. Naruto nearly choked on his food when he heard her giggle. He had never heard a more adorable sound in his life. Before he could recover though, she stuck another spoonful of food in his mouth.

When he finally had his mouth empty, he gave her a serious look that let her know he wanted to ask something. She gave a nod for him to perceive, "Why?" he asked. "Why did you give me food? Why wasn't the food poisoned? Why haven't you killed me yet? Why don't you hate me like everyone else?" by the last question he had started yelling with tears filling his eyes.

An awkward silence filled the small room.

Naruto felt like there wasn't a single person left who loved him. Most of the village was full of malice towards him, those who didn't hate him saw him as a charity case, and the only one who truly cared died. He thought no one could possibly think of him as anything but a monster or a charity case and didn't know how to react. He was incorrect in that thought of course, but when you start thinking like that it is hard to think otherwise.

She frowned, and thought for a few moments. "Naruto-kun, I am about to tell you an S-class secret that could be detrimental to Konoha if you let anyone know. Especially Sasuke. So promise me you will keep it to yourself," as she continued talking Naruto could see the pain gradually enter her eyes. Black eyes met blue as the blonde nodded.

"A few years ago, I was in the ANBU special forces. At the same time my clan, the Uchiha, was not happy with their lot in the village. Therefore, they planned a coup against the Sandaime. As an elite ANBU and a prodigy of the Uchiha, I was forced to play as a double agent for a year, while he tried to resolve it peacefully. When that failed and civil war seemed inevitable, I was tasked with killing the entire clan, save for the only innocent member of the clan, Sasuke. This way a Fourth Shinobi War could be avoided. I was then forced to leave the village that I love and become a criminal."

Naruto sat there for five minutes just contemplating on all the information he had just heard. He was just told that the worst traitor of Konoha was perhaps its greatest unsung hero. She had let herself become the most hated individual in Konoha just for the sake of protecting it. She saved those who continually spit in her face, bearing a hate she didn't deserve. Her story reminded Naruto of his own situation.

Naruto cringed at all the times he had thought of her as a criminal, and immediately changed his opinion of her. All of the hate he had for her turned into admiration at her self-sacrifice. He figured that even though he was in the hands of a criminal organization, he was safe in the presence of someone who loved Konoha even more than him.

"Keep feeding me," he said softly and she obliged.

Just when the meal was almost over and Izumi scooped up the last of the food, the door busted open revealing a very shark-like man.

With a grin Kisame looked at the scene before him and decided to capitalize on the opportunity to tease Izumi. "You're hand feeding him Izumi-chan? Geez, you're already halfway to sleeping with the brat", the man said with a smirk, causing the blonde genin to lightly blush.

Based on how she reacted the last time with Kisame's teasing, Naruto was already planning the man's eulogy. To his surprise, Izumi just smirked back, "Well since you cooked for Naruto-kun, I would say you are much farther along than I," her eyes gained a devilish twinkle as she said, "I wonder what a blonde shark would look like?" she mused, caused the two males in the room to shiver from the thought.

After thinking, Naruto cocked his head in confusion at the situation. Wasn't Izumi supposed to dislike Kisame's teasing and threaten bodily harm whenever it occurred? That's what she did last time. And weren't all women supposed to hate males teasing them? That's what Sakura did whenever he would even try to talk to her.

'Wait a second' he thought, 'ever since I met Izumi, I haven't thought about Sakura once. That's odd,' the blonde realized.

Izumi noticing his confusion at the encounter with Kisame, decided to ask him about it, "Why are you so confused Naruto-kun?"

"Well, the last time that shark person called you Izumi-chan, you looked like you were about to kill him. And this time you not only accepted it, you teased him back. So I was confused as to why a woman like you didn't hit him for harassing you?"

Izumi nodded knowing exactly why he got confused. She decided to explain to the boy exactly how the genjutsu worked.

"When I cast my Genjutsu on you, everything afterwards that you saw never happened," at her saying this Naruto's eyes opened wide in surprise. She continued, "The way that this Genjutsu works is that I send chakra into your brain, and overrides your senses and you become essentially unconscious to the outside world. From then on your brain creates a realistic scenario based on its knowledge of your surroundings and the people around you."

Naruto nodded, not understanding the technical parts but getting the gist of it. Knowing he wanted her to continue to explain, Izumi started talking again, "Since you believed in your master, you saw him coming to save you. Due to your knowledge of his personality, he acted exactly as you expected him to," at this Naruto understood exactly how the Genjustu worked on him.

She continued, "Now as to why I didn't match the version of the Izumi you saw is quite simple. Your brain had very little knowledge about me aside from the fact that I was female, an Uchiha, and that I scared you. From here on is just assumptions based on your life, I'm guessing that your brain made the connection between me and Sasuke unconsciously, so that's why Sasuke appeared in your scenario. I scared you, so that made me act incredibly scary and monstrous in your mind," she stopped to hear Kisame mumble about that last part being true.

Deciding to ignore that she continued, "I'm guessing that you've dealt exclusively with females that either cannot take a joke or grossly overreact. Your brain assumed that I was exactly like all the other females in your life and had me act accordingly. And based on whom both of your teacher's are, I'm assuming that you thought that Kisame would act like all the other perverted males you know," she paused and looked at Kisame, "Although that last part is true," she said getting him back for his sarcasm.

Naruto nodded and understood exactly why his mind had thought Izumi would act that way. Sakura had practically abused him, and although he tried to laugh it off, it still hurt him. He had remembered several times crying to himself over and over again, telling himself that she didn't mean it and she wasn't like the villagers. He also remembered the several times that a female had accidently touched him, he had flinched. At realizing this, Naruto hung his head in shame because although he held great respect for females in general, he had stereotyped all women as violent. Despite it being for his protection, Naruto knew that it was wrong to put everyone in one basket like that.

"I'm sorry Izumi-san for automatically assuming that you were incredibly violent," the young blonde said bowing his head. Well, as much as one can when bound up on a bed.

Izumi giggled at the sight of the boy struggling to bow while tied up. This caused Kisame to stare in awe because while Izumi was the biggest troll in Akatsuki, she almost never openly giggled at anything. 'My joke of her getting into his pants might turn into reality eventually,' he thought with a smirk.

Once she controlled her small laughing fit, Izumi responded to Naruto's apology, "It's fine Naruto-kun, I know you didn't mean it. In actuality, being practically surrounded by guys in Akatsuki I've gotten used to their teasing because I know there is no ill intent in their jokes. In fact it's rather funny to tease them back since they never expect a woman to retaliate. However, if they overstep their bounds and I think it in fact is harassment, I will not be afraid to castrate them," she stated while sending a glare at Kisame.

The two males in the room shivered at the thought of losing their manhood. Kisame coughed and decided to move on with the conversation, "Anyway Izumi-chan, I was sent here to retrieve you for the meeting and to tell you to bring the boy as well."

Nodding at this, Izumi looked at the still bound boy on the bed. "Come on, I'll untie you, I trust that you won't try to run," she said waiting for his response.

Naruto looked into her onyx eyes and started thinking. He knew now that Izumi was in fact a hero to Konoha and loved it as much as he does. He did not trust the organization known as Akatsuki, but he could trust her to protect him. She had put her trust in him about her secret and he was starting to feel trust in her too. Realizing this, he nodded to Izumi and she proceeded to unbind him.

When she finished, he noticed that his wrists hurt slightly as he stood up. Izumi motioned for him to follow her and Kisame out the door. Naruto followed the two out the door into a large hallway. The hallway was carpeted and had chandeliers hanging from the 12-foot ceilings. There were what seemed like dozens of large brown doors down the long hallway that led to a large set of double doors. The two leading the way seemed to be heading for those double doors.

When they got directly in front of the double doors they heard a loud commotion on the inside. At hearing this, Izumi just shook her head and said, "Not again. Why do those two have to be such a pain in the ass?"

Kisame's only response was a sigh as he opened the door to reveal a large clusterfuck. Running back and forth was a man with long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. The man had little mouths on his hand, a sight which made Naruto give a double take to make sure he saw that right. Seeing that he was, Naruto thought that it was simultaneously cool and gross at the same time. The man shouted saying, "True art is supposed to look like this," as he pulled out clay.

"Cover your ears," Izumi whispered in his ear. He followed her orders with a blush on his face due to her closeness. He could feel her breath on his ear, and he shivered at the sensation.

The blonde man started throwing the clay everywhere and yelled "Kai!" causing explosions to rock the whole room. Naruto was very glad that Izumi told him to cover his ears because even with that the noise was almost deafening.

"Did you see that marvelous art Sasori?" he said looking at a redhead across from him.

Sasori had light brown eyes and shaggy red hair. He was of average height for a young adult like him. He saw the man had a scowl on his face as he looked at the blonde man across from him. "No you idiot. That's not art, that's just the flashy randomness of an idiot. Art is eternity like this body," he said as he opened his cloak to reveal that his body was really made like a puppet.

Naruto was reminded of Kankuro by this man. Suddenly, thinking of Kankuro reminded him of the Chunin exams, and consequently his Jiji. As he started putting up his mask to keep himself from crying, he felt someone hit the back of his head.

"If you feel like crying, then cry stupid brat," Kisame said to him while putting a hand on his shoulder. While he wasn't as fond of him as Izumi was, Kisame was starting to warm up to the boy. Kisame could tell the brat tried his best to put the feelings of others into account before his own. It reminded Kisame of himself when he was younger. 'Back before things got complicated,' Kisame thought as some bad memories came rushing through his mind.

Naruto felt some tears forming in his eyes and he wiped them away thankful for the man next to him. He saw a group sitting at a table in what looked like a large conference room. Craters still lingered in the floor from the explosion. The confrontation between the man named Sasori and the blonde man still raged on as those sitting around the table just sat there as if the commotion was nothing new.

Naruto wasn't surprised that the rest of the members of Akatsuki looked just as weird as the four he had seen so far. One was a man with a cloth mask covering the bottom half of his face. He had green eyes and Naruto thought he saw black cords moving around under his cloak. The man sitting to his left had grey slicked back hair and black eyes. He looked fairly normal except for the crazy glint in his eyes. Next to him on the other side was a man with dark black hair and onyx eyes which was fairly common. Except that one half of his face was full of scars as if it had been crushed. Across from the man with the cords was a woman with blue hair with an origami flower in it. She had red eyes and a blank expression on her face. The two seats to her right were empty as well as the seat to her left and the seat to the cord man's right. The chair at the head of the table was a man with orange spiky hair and weird piercings all over his face. Everyone in the room was wearing the standard red cloud cloaks except for him and Izumi.

All in all, it was a weird sight to Naruto, and he had seen Gai and Lee in their spouts of youth. Izumi and Kisame decided it was time to walk into the room. Izumi sat in the seat next to the blue haired woman and Kisame sat next to the cord man.

Izumi cleared her throat, "I have brought the nine tails jinchuriki to you, just as you have asked," Naruto figured he should enter the room. As he entered the room he noticed that all eyes were on him. Even the two arguing like children stopped and just stared at him. The only sound in the room was the small fire in the room that was in the corner from the explosions earlier. The young blonde squirmed under the combined focus of all the Akatsuki.

The orange haired man broke the silence and in a deep voice said, "Welcome Naruto, to the Akatsuki headquarters. You are now our tool to bring change to this turbulent world."

Chapter three end

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'm sorry if it takes long periods of time to release chapters since school is a thing. Weekends are my only time to work on it since college applications, track and ap classes take a lot of time from my life. However, this Thanksgiving I'll try to crank out a few chapters. Please review, the one reviewer I got was incredibly nice and gave me some confidence that I'm heading in the right direction. However, more reviews will always help me work to improve my writing. If my writing style changes slightly from chapter to chapter that is just me trying to find my own style that works for me since I have yet to establish my own. Thank you for reading and I truly hope you enjoyed.


	4. Chapter 4: Playing The Bad Guy

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto (if you thought I did you're at the wrong site)

Chapter 4: Playing The Bad Guy

Izumi POV:

"WHAAAT!?"

The blonde genin exclaimed at the news that he was essentially the property of a criminal organization. His yelling caused all of the members of Akatsuki to wince in the sheer volume. Izumi was willing to bet there were cringing Inuzuka's in Konoha at the moment.

Despite the image of Inuzuka's all over the world falling over in pain from the yelling of a thirteen year old, Izumi couldn't help but frown. Izumi knew Naruto was generally a quiet person, if he was this loud that meant that he had put his mask back on. 'And after all my efforts to get that mask off too,' she thought to herself. She glared at the orange haired man at the head of the table. The idiot had jumped the gun on that proposal and undid all of her work to get Naruto to open up to her. She made a mental note to mess with him using some genjutsu later as payback.

The orange haired man just ignored the glare sent at him and smirked, "you heard it right boy, from now on you shall do our work to bring about a new world."

Izumi was about to snap at the stupid man for not explaining anything to the young boy who was currently shaking with rage. Before she could however, she was beat to the punch by Kisame, "Goddamn it Pain, What the hell are you thinking? Despite your God complex, you can't just give a vague directive and expect everyone to happily follow it."

This outburst surprised Izumi, especially since Kisame is the one who chewed out their "Pain-sama", in the defense of a "snot-nosed brat". She smirked, 'So you see his potential as a comrade too Kisame,' she thought to herself.

"Yeah, Pain-sama, you're just wasting time by not explaining anything, time that could be used to do more missions and getting us out of debt," added the cord man.

Pain just winced at the mention of the debt, "Kakuzu, please don't mention the debt we have, it brings back bad memories."

The blue haired woman decided to put her two-cents in, "Well Nagato, it's your fault we have the debt in the first place. Something about having to play that blasted carnival game so many times in order to get the signed version of Icha Icha Paradise," she said glaring at the orange haired man.

Pain just shrunk under the gaze of his best friend, "But Konan-chan, I didn't think that game was going to be so rigged, plus that was the version with an extra deleted scene in it, there are only five of those in existence," the man said trying to excuse himself.

The man with his face half-full of scars face-palmed, "You're a ninja for Christ's sake, use those so-called 'God-like' skills to get it on the first try, instead of trying how many times?"

"I didn't think of that Obito, I lost count when I got to the hundred thousands," Pain said sheepishly.

"Are you kidding me? Even Sasori and his piss poor excuse for art don't suck that much," the man with the blonde hair said.

"Shut the hell up Deidara, you wouldn't know true art if it hit you in the face, although I could arrange that for you," the red headed man named Sasori said, bringing out his puppets to attack Deidara.

The rest of the group decided to ignore the two idiots of the group.

The man with the slicked back gray hair decided to weigh in on the conversation, "If you want Pain, I can go kill the owner of that booth for you, I'm sure Jashin-sama would love the sight of his violent dismemberment," the man offered with a crazy glint in his eyes.

"No Hidan, I don't think that's the solution to this problem, thank you for the offer though," Pain offered. This caused Hidan to go off into the corner, muttering things like, 'The things I would do' and 'Oh Jashin-sama would love this'. This caused all of those in the room to start sweating profusely.

"But seriously Pain, you have a problem. I think you shou-" Obito started before he was interrupted.

"You guys do know that I'm still here, right?" Naruto said making Izumi sweat even more. She had forgotten that he was still there.

Naruto POV:

Naruto was actually happy that the topic of conversation had moved away from him. It gave him time to get used to his current situation.

A lot had happened in the matter of an hour. First, he had found out that he had been capture by an international criminal organization. Then, he had found out that the biggest traitor in Konoha's history was actually one of its greatest heroes. Next, said organization wanted him to help bring about change to the world. And Naruto was certain that the change couldn't be anything but bad. Finally, he was watching the members of said organization interact and was getting confused.

'Such a nonchalant group of people are striking fear into all of the major villages?' Naruto thought to himself.

As their conversation went on Naruto made sure to memorize their names as they were said. Despite not being the smartest person, Naruto was not as big of an idiot as he made himself out to be. He still knew to take every advantage he could possibly get in a hostile environment.

After a while of their idiotic banter, Naruto had enough and figured that he would have to interrupt them. He coughed, cutting the man named Obito off, "You guys do know that I'm still here right?"

They all looked at him with blank expressions on their faces. He wanted to hit himself at their stupidity, 'And people call me stupid,' the blonde thought.

Kisame coughed, "Well since our glorious leader over here," he said pointing a glare at Pain, "decided to jump the gun and scare you, I'll formerly ask you. Naruto, will you join the criminal organization known as Akatsuki as its tenth member? And before you answer, let us explain ourse-"

Naruto cut him off again, "No," he said, "I don't want to join an organization full of traitors to their villages," he said rejecting them, refusing to be part of an organization full of people trying to harm his precious ones.

Naruto trusted Izumi with his life, however he couldn't bring himself to trust the rest of Akatsuki. He had heard too many rumors of the atrocities they had committed. No matter how harmless they seemed in the conversation he had just seen, he knew they had the capability to kill many people. 'In order to take the world over, like they seem to be planning, that would lead them to attacking Konoha. They'll kill Iruka-sensei, Ayame-san, Teuchi-jiji, the teme, Sakura, and Kakashi-sensei. I can't join an organization like that. I'll never let that happen,' he resolved to himself.

That is, until he looked into Izumi's eyes. Those onyx eyes held nothing but hurt and disappointment in them. Naruto knew that all of that disappointment was aimed at him. He hung his head in shame, for some reason, he did not want to disappoint the beautiful kunoichi in front of him.

Then, he looked around at all of the other members' eyes, and he immediately felt regret for what he said. The eyes of Deidara, Kisame, Kakuzu, Obito, and Sasori held extreme pain and loneliness. Kisame's eyes held a tinge of betrayal as well as the pain. Naruto knew those eyes, those same eyes that stared back into his mirror after he dropped his mask.

"Naruto," Izumi said simply, "They're like me."

The implication hidden behind those words took Naruto a second to understand. He realized that she meant that all of the people in this room, like her, were possibly the greatest heroes the Elemental Nations had ever seen. Once he understood this, he gasped.

He silently cursed at himself. He had caused great pain to them by calling them traitors. He hadn't even gotten to know them, he only blindly hated them for reasons outside of their control. 'I'm no better than those stupid villagers then, am I?' he thought to himself.

Naruto looked again at all of the members of Akatsuki, this time he decided to take off his mask and looked deep into the eyes of all the members, "I am deeply sorry for my immaturity just now," he said with a bow, causing everyone in the room to be surprised.

Those who hadn't seen him before were surprised by the hurt in the eyes of someone so young. Izumi and Kisame were surprised about the fact that the brat could be mature beyond his years.

"Please explain yourselves to me, then I'll decide," said the lone genin in the room.

Izumi decided to be the one to explain their situation to the boy. She was the closest one to him, and the chances of him joining increases greatly when she was the one to explain.

"Naruto, as you may have figured out already, all of the people in this room have been kicked out of our villages for one reason or the other. Do not ask each individual their story since it is painful to remember," she warned, to which Naruto nodded, and she continued, "However, everyone here also still loves their villages. And so, we decided to join a group of people in similar situations. This was the birth of the Akatsuki organization as it is today."

Naruto nodded for her to continue, to which she did, "After seeing the atrocious acts brought about by war and conflict, all of the people here wished for true peace."

To this, Naruto raised his eyebrow and motioned towards Hidan, "Even him?" he questioned.

"Well he's just here because… well… I don't know… Hidan, why the hell are you in an organization that wants to bring peace to the world?" Izumi asked, genuinely curious as to why she never wondered this before Naruto pointed it out.

"It's quite simple really," Hidan explained in an uncharacteristically calm voice, "Jashin-sama only likes death carried out in the proper format, since war doesn't give one enough time to actually perform the right rituals it causes less proper deaths. Jashin-sama does not like that, so I was told to join you to stop war, and then I can kill as many people properly as I want to."

'Note to self: stay away from him, he's bat-shit crazy,' Naruto thought to himself.

The rest of the group only nodded as if this answer did not surprise them in the slightest.

"Okay, I understand that you want world peace," Naruto said trying to move the conversation away from whatever the hell that just was, "But how come there are so many terrible rumors about this group?"

Kisame decided to answer this question, "Well Gaki, Despite wanting to bring peace to the world, we are still shinobi, we are sometimes forced to do some dirty work. However since our vision for peace threatens the power of the Hidden Villages, they grossly exaggerate our actions in order to dissuade people from joining our cause."

Naruto nodded at this, not fully understanding the political structure of the Elemental Nations, but knowing how low people will stoop when full of fear. The villagers' abuse served as a constant reminder of that lesson.

"You keep talking about bringing peace to the world, but doesn't that seem like an impossible goal?" Naruto asked.

"So is trying to become Hokage when all you use is the **kagebunshin** ," Kisame retorted.

'It's not my fault nobody would teach me, the only ones who remotely cared were Iruka-sensei and Jiji. Iruka-sensei only taught me useless things and Jiji didn't have enough time,' Naruto thought to himself. At the thought of his dead surrogate grandfather, a little part of Naruto died inside.

"Well if it ain't broke, don't fix it," Naruto retorted back. But even he could tell it sounded empty.

Pain wanted to change the conversation fast for Naruto's sake, "We have a two part plan in order to bring peace to the world, and we need you for both of them. The first part is to cause the demilitarization of the Hidden Villages, you'll be given more information on that in a little bit. The second part is we'll force the Hidden Villages to form an alliance," he explained.

"How are you going to do that?" Naruto asked. At this question he saw all in the room look at the table they were sitting at with varying levels of solemnity and acceptance.

"By playing the bad guy," Izumi said simply.

Naruto was confused, "How would that help?"

"The only way to get enemies to work together is if a bigger threat comes along to force them to work together," Obito explained to the young blonde.

He had to agree with the assessment made, two enemies can only come together when forced to by a bigger threat. Naruto remembered his experience with Zabuza forcing him and Sasuke to work together.

Naruto was starting to piece together what the group was planning to get the Hidden Villages to work together. Despite agreeing with their assessment, he still didn't like it. In fact, he was outraged at it.

"You're planning on taking on the world! Do you know how stupid that is?!" his outburst only caused solemn looks all around the table. Silence filled the room.

Izumi broke the silence in a soft and broken voice, as if she was on the verge of tears, "We have to do it, all for the sake of peace."

Naruto may have understood their line of thought, but thought it was outrageous. Their plan was both suicidal and self-sacrificing, all for the sake of a peace that has no guarantee to last. Naruto wanted to protect his precious people, and he knew bringing peace to the world would be the best way to do that. But he knew that this wasn't a way to bring about peace. Peace can be brought about through nonviolence. Peace can be achieved from mutual understanding, as long as both sides are willing to try. One shouldn't have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of peace when there was another option.

But even more, he was mad that Izumi was doing this. He now considered her as one of his precious people and he knew that she would die if they follow through with this plan. He was mad that she was sacrificing herself for the village for a second time.

"Izumi-chan you don't have to do this, you'll just die," he was desperate. He didn't want to lose another precious person, not after he lost his Jiji. He hadn't even noticed his use of the honorific.

"I don't need you to tell me the risks Naruto-kun, we all resolved to do this when we joined Akatsuki," she said, voice steeled with determination. All around the table nodded with eyes filled with that same determination.

Silence filled the room, leaving Naruto time to think about what to do next. When he lost his Jiji, there was nothing he could do. He was far away from where he could help, and even if he had been there he knew he would have been useless. He didn't want to feel that helplessness again. This time though, he had a chance to prevent losing a precious person.

He knew their plan was faulty at best. Despite causing a temporary peace, Naruto knew that peace based on a lie wouldn't last. 'That's what this is,' Naruto thought, 'one big lie, turning good people into international criminals is just one big farce to fool the Hidden Villages.' They were playing the bad guys, all in order to help those who scorn them. Naruto didn't like this, not one bit.

From his little interaction with them, Naruto knew these were good people. Naruto knew they wanted to do the impossible and bring good change to the world. Although, he disagreed with their methods, Naruto still wanted to see it come into fruition. He wanted to create a world where his

With these thoughts, Naruto gained a new resolution in his heart. He would not let himself repeat his mistake and he would stay with his precious person all for the sake of creating a world where Iruka-sensei, Teuchi-jiji, Ayame-san, and the rest of the rookie nine could be safe. He would see a peaceful world created by this insane group of people and he would be a part of them.

"I want in on your plans," Naruto said hesitantly and then more confidently. This caused visible relief on the faces of the members of Akatsuki. A certain feeling rose up within Naruto when he saw the pride on Izumi's face.

Kisame piped in, "A few more flags and you might actually get in his pants, Izumi-chan," he said with a grin.

She returned his grin with a smirk and simply said, "blonde sharks." Kisame and Naruto both shivered. She made a mental note to continue using this to shut Kisame up.

Pain interrupted them, "We'll accept you as the tenth member of Akatsuki, however, before you can join, you must be trained to an acceptable level of skill," Naruto nodded and was actually hoping this would happen. He knew his skill wasn't enough to protect Izumi.

"Kisame, you'll be teaching him in kenjutsu," Pain said to the shark-like man. He nodded, excited to have a go at someone with as much energy as him.

"Deidara, you will be teaching him in evasion, since your explosions will be perfect for that," Deidara grinned at his new target practice. Said target started sweating.

"Konan, you will be teaching him in stealth, although, I don't think he'll need too much help with that," Konan nodded. Despite her blank face, she was excited to finally have a student.

"Kakuzu, you're in charge of his physical training," Naruto was pretty sure he was smirking evilly under his mask as he nodded.

"Sasori, you're in charge of teaching him in poisons, medicines and using chakra threads," the redhead nodded, already coming up with his training menu.

"Obito, you're in charge of Ninjutsu, he knows **kagebunshin,** so you know what to do," Obito nodded.

"Hidan, you're gonna spar with him and he'll use the lethal techniques we teach him on you, this way he'll know how to incorporate them into his fighting style and since you can't die you'll be a perfect punching bag. You can fight back but don't kill the boy," Hidan didn't nod, he only mumbled to himself about his Jashinism. Naruto got nervous again.

"I'll be in charge of both his taijutsu style and help him practice fighting against multiple opponents, you'll need that skill," Naruto nodded, not understanding how one person could help him learn how to fight multiple people at once.

"And finally Izumi, you will be teaching him genjutsu," she nodded, knowing with his prankster mind that Naruto would be a monster in genjutsu.

"Naruto, most of the members here are very specialized masters, however, we don't have any all-around fighters, we want you to become a utility fighter."

All of the members of the Akatsuki had only one thought at the end of assigning the teachers, 'This kid is going to be fucking insane when we're done with him. He'll probably be one of the strongest in the Elemental Nations.'

Naruto, surprisingly, only had one question, "I don't understand, I thought that with my garbage chakra control, I wouldn't be able to use genjutsu ever."

Pain grimaced, knowing that Naruto wouldn't like the answer, "It has to do with the first part of our plans: the demilitarizing of the Hidden Villages. What is the greatest trump card of the major Ninja Villages in any war?" he asked Naruto.

"Um… the Kage maybe," he guessed.

"No Naruto, a Kage doesn't usually fight in a war, they're like the king piece in chess. The Queen piece, the piece with the most attack power and usually do the most devastation to the other pieces, in a ninja village are the Jinchuriki. They serve as weapons of mass destruction to the village and are the most dangerous existence to peace."

Naruto felt hurt that he was considered a detriment to peace. But that hurt went away by the pure shock at the next words he heard.

"Therefore, we will demilitarize the Hidden Villages by freeing the Bijuu from their prisons, and we're starting with you, Naruto."

Chapter 4 end

A/N: Happy thanksgiving. I hope you are having a wonderful holiday full of family and fun. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I had originally planned on having last chapter and this chapter being only one chapter but when I started writing I knew it wouldn't fit. Now, you have seen the three conflicting versions of attaining peace in this fanfiction. First, Danzo's militaristic version to attain peace, then, Akatsuki's peace through self-sacrifice, and finally, Naruto's peace through understanding. Please review.


	5. Chapter 5: To Extract A Bijuu

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto (you're on the wrong site if that's what you're looking for)

Chapter 5: To Extract A Bijuu

"You fucking want to do what?" the blonde genin yelled loudly at the leader of Akatsuki.

"Take the Kyuubi out of you," Pain responded simply.

"You can do that?" Naruto asked. He had never heard of this happening before. He thought he would have his tenant for life. He would admit that he didn't know much about Jinchuriki's, but he thought it was a lifelong job.

"Well…" Izumi said, "Every time someone else has tried, the host of the Bijuu has died," she said, waiting for it to sink in to Naruto. She saw worry invade his whole demeanor. His shoulders slumped, making his already short stature even shorter. His skin grew clammy from sweat and his hands started shaking. He looked like a man on death row, in Izumi's opinion, and she had seen many a men on death row. She had a sudden urge to comfort him but held back because of the place they were in.

Naruto lowered his head in resignation, "If my death is what you need for peace, then I accept it, I've already decided to do everything I can for this cause and that's a promise of a lifetime, even if it's a short lifetime," he said with an empty smile, though his eyes were full of determination as he snuck a glance at Izumi.

Kisame hit him again upside the head, "Hey gaki, don't be an idiot, If we were going to cause your death, then why the hell would we have agreed to train you?" To this, Naruto thought about that and realized that what Kisame said was true. Izumi noticed that he looked visibly relieved.

"Kisame is correct, we may have found a way to free a Bijuu from its host without the death of the host," Pain revealed, waiting for Naruto to nod to continue. When he did, Pain continued, "We've been studying Bijuu and Jinchuriki for a few years searching for the answer. We were coming up short as to how to preserve the life of the Jinchuriki when extracting Bijuu. However, when studying all of the past Bijuu extractions we noticed there was a common trait in all of them."

Naruto was excited at the news of a breakthrough and wanted to know more. Despite not being a bookworm, Naruto was actually fascinated with learning about who and what he was.

Pain continued, "We noticed that all of them had been forced by a third party, none of them had the consent of both the Jinchuriki and Bijuu," Naruto was surprised at this.

"Bijuu can give consent?" Naruto looked confused.

"Well they are over eighteen," Izumi said with a smirk, to which Naruto gave her a look of annoyance.

"Yes Naruto , Bijuu are intelligent beings that have thoughts and feelings of their own," Obito said to Naruto. 

"How do you know that?" Naruto asked, shooting off another question.

Obito had a dark look in his eyes as he said, "I talked to one once."

"Oh," Naruto said, not having anything to say for once.

"If you talk to the Kyuubi and you both are okay with it, the actual process is quite simple, you just take the seal off and he'll leave, but he must promise to both leave gradually and leave a small amount of his chakra within you," Pain explained.

"Why?" Naruto asked, shooting off yet another question.

"Because most of the Jinchuriki died from one of two things: first, the Bijuu gets roughly extracted from them and the Jinchuriki's body gets destroyed, or if that doesn't kill them the sudden loss of the Bijuu chakra sends them into shock, killing the Jinchuriki," Pain explained, "By having the Kyuubi leave gradually, the first problem becomes merely painful and not lethal. And by having the Kyuubi leave a small amount of chakra, your system won't go into shock. With this plan, the chances of you dying goes down to only twenty percent."

Naruto nodded not caring about the risks, yet still somewhat skeptical, "So how do I know that the Kyuubi won't destroy everyone if I free him? He attacked Konoha, didn't he?"

"Just ask him yourself, but wait for tomorrow, a lot has happened to you and you need to think before you confront the Kyuubi, I'd recommend you try and sleep," suggested Konan.

"Your room is the same room you woke up in earlier, I trust that you know how to get back there, we need to continue to discuss things that don't concern you yet," stated Pain.

The blonde nodded and turned to leave the conference room. He had to sidestep one of the flaming pits caused by Deidara as he walked out of the door. He walked out a different person than when he walked in.

Later that night:

Lying on his bed, Naruto began to think about all that happened. He didn't like the fact that he would essentially do things that go against every fiber of his being. It felt wrong to go against his village. It felt wrong to free a beast that he had heard had taken his parents away from him. Yet he had to do it. It was for the sake of his precious people. And it was for the sake of Izumi.

Izumi. He had only known her for a few hours, yet she had already found her way into his heart. He knew she was special. She was smart, strong, and beautiful, but that's not what was attractive to him. It was the fact that she saw past his mask, and still accepted him for it. It was the fact that she had trusted him enough to open up to him.

He didn't love her, not yet. He was…. interested in her. Yes interested.

Soon however, the day had worn out his large amount of energy and found himself falling asleep to thoughts of Izumi.

Naruto was dreaming. He knew that, yet his dreams still haunted him.

 _Naruto was standing in a large plain, yet instead of grass on the ground, it was a field of ash. Despite the sun being out, it didn't seem to provide heat to Naruto's cold body, in fact, it just seemed to suck all the warmth out from him. The sky was not blue, but a deep red that looked eerily like blood._

 _Naruto felt a bad presence in the air and his instincts told him to run. Following his instincts, he ran as fast as he could away from that bad presence. His legs felt like lead as he struggled to pump them as hard as he could. Ash from the air filled his lungs causing him to cough heavily. But, he couldn't slow down because that presence was not only following him, but quickly catching up._

 _He had no energy at all, an odd fact considering he always had energy. His breathing grew heavy and haggard. He suddenly couldn't move anymore and couldn't help but fall onto the field of ash._

 _Suddenly, the evil presence swallowed him up and prevented all movement. Naruto choked under the presence of pure malice. He couldn't breathe and was almost knocked out by a sharp all-encompassing pain. He couldn't think and his vision was foggy. There was no reprieve as he was constantly tortured for what seemed like hours._

 _The presence left him as suddenly as it came. Relief coursed through Naruto as he was glad that the pain went away. Although, he still couldn't move._

 _Soon, though, he wished that the presence had stayed after the torture he received next._

 _Suddenly, what appeared before him were all of his precious people. He saw Ayame-san, Teuchi-jiji, Iruka-sensei, Kakashi-sensei, and Sakura. He saw a tall blonde man with kind blue eyes and a red headed woman with violet eyes. He felt a strange connection to them, although he couldn't put his finger on it. He saw Izumi with a loving expression on her face, which was odd since he had never seen that look on her before. Just looking at her made his heart rate rise a little bit._

 _The final figure before him brought tears to his eyes the second he recognized him. That wrinkled skin and those kind eyes brought so many memories back to him. He remembered every time that he was scolded for one of his prank. He remembered every time that he would prattle on about his "will of fire". He remembered every time that the man would glare back at the villagers every time they would vent their hatred on Naruto when he would walk with the young boy. His Jiji was right before him, looking at Naruto with pure trust._

 _All of his precious people were lined up in front of him, looking at Naruto with pure love and trust._

 _Suddenly, a faceless man walked up behind them with a sword in his hand. He walked painfully slow, each step driving fear into Naruto's heart._

 _A scream built up in his throat, as the man went behind Ayame-san and stabbed her through the chest. Tears flowed freely down Naruto's cheek, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't move or make any sound._

 _He felt helpless, he could do nothing._

 _His anguish only rose with each person cut down by the faceless man. What made it worse was the look of betrayal on each person's face as they were killed. They looked straight into his eyes with a look of disappointment. As if they had trusted Naruto, and he had let them down. He wanted to kill the man, and then burn his body after he was dead. The man didn't deserve to have a single cell left on this world._

 _After his Jiji, the last precious person, had been killed, the faceless man walked up to Naruto. His hate for the man grew with each step toward him. He glared at the man as he stood before Naruto's motionless body._

 _The man rose his sword in the air and-_

Naruto woke with a start. He had tears in his eyes and was covered in sweat.

This situation wasn't new to Naruto, but it still made bile rise in his throat every time that it happened.

As he regained his bearings, he realized he was on his bed in his new room that the Akatsuki let him use. Moonlight flooded his room, causing shadows of pure darkness to be in the corners of the room.

An unknown figure came out from those shadows and walked towards the young blonde on the bed. As it came within a step of him, he flinched, expecting to be killed, like in his dream.

He felt warmth fill him as he was enveloped in an embrace. He smelled something sweet, almost like honey. When he opened his eyes, through his tear-filled vision he could only see black hair.

"It's okay, don't shut these emotions down, I'm here, just cry on my shoulder," he heard Izumi's voice say.

He just nodded into her shoulder, tears flowing freely. He cried into her embrace for hours, as she just rubbed his back, comforting him. He finally closed his eyes, exhausted from crying for hours, and slept.

When he woke up, light was flooding the room. He was on his bed, alone.

'Izumi must have gone back to her room,' he thought.

He realized that he was still in his orange jumpsuit from the day before, and felt absolutely filthy. He saw that somebody had left clothes folded in front of his door.

He didn't want to get rid of his orange jumpsuit, but he needed a change. He didn't want to be useless, like he was in his dreams. He needed to make a change in not only his work ethic, but all aspects in life.

So with great hesitation, he took off his orange jumpsuit and put on the clothes in front of him. When finished, he looked in the mirror and admired the result.

He wore dark blue ANBU pants that went to his mid-calf. His ninja sandals did not change from his original outfit. Underneath his unzipped dark gray jacket was a fishnet shirt. He had his ninja headband around his neck allowing for his blonde hair to flow freely. He was sad when he saw that the headband had a slash through the Konoha symbol, but knew it was for the best. Overall, he thought he looked fairly decent. Although, it did look a bit bland with all its blue's and gray's.

After attaching his kunai holster to his leg, he opened the door and left the room. He didn't know where to go, but assumed that everyone would be at the place he smelled food cooking. Following his nose, he went down the large hallway and made a few turns to enter a large room with a long dining table on one side and a large sectional couch on the other side of the room.

Sitting at the table were Obito, Konan, Kakuzu, Hidan, Kisame, Pain, and Izumi. They all had half eaten plates of pancakes and eggs on their plates, as they were eating and talking. Sitting on the couch was a tied up and gagged Deidara and Sasori.

As Naruto walked closer to the table, admiring the sheer amount of food, Izumi noticed him. She spoke up, making everyone else notice the blonde, "Wait a second. I thought I captured an annoying blonde named Naruto Uzumaki, who the hell is this kid?" she said with a smirk.

Naruto was thankful for what she did last night and wanted to convey it with the look that he gave her, hoping it wouldn't be missed by those famous eyes of hers.

She got the message, however another person recognized that look and decided to file it away for later. Kisame smirked, excited to question his partner on what **exactly** that look meant.

"Like it?" he asked with a grin.

"Well it certainly is an improvement, I'd say you qualify as attractive compared to before, but then again that's not setting the bar that high," she teased him. Contrary to her words though, she couldn't stop glancing at him.

His confidence somewhat deflated, he motioned to the idiotic duo on the couch, "the hell's up with them?"

Konan looked about ready to kill, "They started playing with the food that I cooked for them, trying to create 'artwork'," she said with venom in her voice, "Before it inevitably turned into an argument, I decided to take care of them," Naruto swore that he saw an evil glint in her expressionless eyes.

Pain gestured to the empty chair that contained a full plate of food before it, "Here Naruto, have some food before you go through with the procedure, wouldn't want you to feel excruciating pain and hunger at the same time," he said with a small chuckle.

Naruto paled and all at the table glared at the man's poor taste in jokes. He sheepishly went back to his food in response to the glares.

Naruto hesitantly went up to his chair and sat down. He slowly ate his food, afraid of facing Konan's wrath, as the table's conversation started up again.

"Hey Kakuzu, do you think there's a separate heaven for immortal people?" asked Hidan.

"How the hell are you going to get to heaven if you can't die? Hidan, your idiocy rivals the idiotic duo's over there," replied the annoyed Kakuzu.

"I was just wondering," said Hidan sheepishly.

"Next thing, he'll be wondering where babies come from, what are you gonna do then papa Kakuzu?" teased Izumi.

Kisame just scoffed, "Please, I don't think even Kakuzu knows where babies come from, although, I do think those cords could make it a very kinky experience."

Obito just looked over at Konan, "Do you want me to hit them or do you want the honors?"

"Please don't," she said, "they might like it," as she said with a miniscule grin at her own joke.

Obito just kept smacking his head on the table, cursing his fate of being stuck with these nincompoops.

Pain, hoping that they had forgotten about his earlier misconduct, piped in, "Cheer up Obito, if you can't have a sense of humor you won't get far in life."

Obito gave him a look of annoyance, "you won't get far in life either, if you keep pissing Konan and I off," he said, brandishing his butter knife as a weapon to make his point.

Naruto looked on with awe, he had never had a breakfast with a family before, and wondered if this is what it felt like. The way that they bantered and made fake threats reminded him of a close family.

Naruto soon joined in the banter, to the delight of everyone there. He had a sharp tongue and prankster's flair that let him excel in the arena known as banter. He teased Obito constantly. He said his name should be "Obi" because he had half of a face and half of a personality, therefore he should have half of a name. Izumi spit out her orange juice when she heard this and laughed incredibly loud, much to the surprise of the other members.

When they had finished breakfast, Pain decided to move on with Naruto's progress, "Naruto, if you will, we'll take you underground to give you a controlled spot to talk to the Kyuubi," Naruto nodded and they left the room.

On the way out, Konan decided to untie the two idiots and let them come along.

Naruto followed pain down countless hallways and several flights of stairs. The whole way, everyone was uncharacteristically silent, solemn because they knew the blonde would have to face a risky trial.

They reached a large metal door that contained several locks. Pain turned around and faced the young boy, "This is where most of us will leave you, good luck, Izumi has volunteered to go in with you."

The blonde nodded, reassured that Izumi will be with him. The rest of the Akatsuki mumbled words of encouragement to the boy and left him. They were worried about the boy.

Pain opened the door to reveal a metal room with seals all over the walls and ceiling. The two stepped into the room and Pain locked the door behind them.

Izumi led him to the center and had him lay down. She looked down at him with a look of pure trust, "I know you can do this, I'll be here waiting for you to wake up."

She poked his forehead and he could feel him being pulled into his mindscape. Before he fully succumbed to it though, he felt a light, soft pressure to his forehead.

In Naruto's mindscape:

Naruto was in a familiar place, since he had been to his mindscape before. He was in a sewer with water up to his ankles. He walked through the sewer, taking a familiar route to his tenant.

Before him, were large cage bars that were easily three feet in diameter. On one of them was a large seal that helped contain the creature inside.

Said creature was a massive orange fox. It had nine tails that flowed freely behind it. Its red eyes seemed to be full of pure malice. It was lying down lazily with its head on its crossed forelimbs.

Naruto looked defiantly into its eyes as it picked up its head and glared at the boy. The two had a stare down for what seemed like eternity.

"Yo furball," Naruto said, breaking the silence, "we need to talk."

Chapter 5 End

To **ReddFoxx** : I hope this chapter answered your questions and that you accepted those answers. I hope it doesn't seem like I pulled that out of my ass (even though I did). The only thing that I could come up with (besides the Akatsuki magically having a seal master, and I thought that would be even more bullshit), is that in all of the cases of bijuu extraction it was forcibly extracted. What if both sides willingly let the other go, then it might not be fatal. It's bullshit. I know. But that's not the main idea of the story so if you could kindly overlook it, I would be thankful. Please continue reading.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'm finding that I enjoy writing these, it doesn't feel like work anymore. Again, this chapter and next chapter was supposed to be only one, but once I started writing, I knew that wouldn't happen. Please continue reading and please review.


	6. Chapter 6: And He Smiled

"normal speaking"

" **Kyuubi speaking"**

Chapter 6: And He Smiled

"Yo furball," Naruto said, looking defiantly into the Kyuubi's eyes, "We need to talk."

Naruto felt a chakra spike from the beast in front of him. The chakra felt the same as it had last time he had been forced to use it, evil and malevolent. Just standing in the presence of such evil chakra made his skin crawl.

" **You dare call me 'furball' you insolent human, I am the greatest of the Bijuu, and you are one of the lowliest of the humans, and yet you have the audacity to act like you're hot shit,"** the Kyuubi growled out.

Naruto stared blankly at the beast, "You know why I'm here, you overgrown furball with a stick up your ass."

" **You dare order the Kyuubi around?! I could destroy you like the bug you are!"** the orange fox boomed in a ground shaking voice.

"Cut it with this whole 'I am a mighty Bijuu' skit, I can tell when someone is forcing themselves to act a certain way, so stop it," Naruto said in a calm voice.

The change was so sudden it shocked the young boy, It was even more drastic than his own difference in personalities. The Kyuubi's eye color went from a violent blood red to the reds found in a summer sunset. Instead of the presence in the sewer being unnerving, Naruto felt calm and at peace. As opposed to being cold, Naruto felt a warm feeling grow inside of him. The Kyuubi's smile grew less sinister and more genuine.

" **You look more and more like them every day,"** the Kyuubi said in a soft tone.

Naruto grew confused, "like who?"

" **Kushina and Minato,"** the fox said in a somber tone, **"the only people that accepted me, and also your parents."**

Naruto gasped.

"You knew my parents?" Naruto asked in a shaky voice.

" **More than anyone,"** Kyuubi said **, "I was sealed in your mother for many years, and Kushina and I became close friends, despite the positions we were in,"** the Kyuubi paused **, "and your father, Minato, the Yondaime Hokage, was the only shinobi I have ever respected and I gave your mother and father countless dating tips,"**

Naruto short-circuited for a few moments before asking, "you mean to say my father was _the_ Yondaime Hokage?"

" **Did you ever look at the Hokage mountain faces?"**

"Almost every day, why?"

" **You never noticed that you look exactly like the Yondaime?"** the Bijuu questioned.

Naruto hit himself in the face. He looked at that monument every day and yet he had never noticed the similarity between him and the Yondaime's face. Hell, he had even seen his face in the history books. Naruto must have been the biggest idiot in the world, minus those who had known the Yondaime personally and still hadn't figured it out.

Then, Naruto had a painful realization, tears started forming in his eyes, "So does that mean that my own father condemned me to a life of hell?"

" **No! don't you dare talk that way about Minato,"** the fox protested, **"He did what he had to do, Minato, he… h-he… d-did his b-best in the circumstances I had p-put him in,"** the Bijuu said while slowly breaking down.

"Are you referring to when you attacked the village?" the blonde questioned, while the giant fox in front of him broke down into sobs.

" **It w-wasn't my f-fault, this m-mean bandage guy broke m-me out of the s-seal and used his sh-sharingan to make me destroy th-the v-village. I broke out of m-my trance to t-tell Minato to seal me into y-you, and th-then when the mean b-bandage g-guy regained c-control h-he m-made m-me…"** the Bijuu trailed off at the end of the story.

Naruto was hooked, desperate to hear anything about his family, "made you what?"

The fox in front of him seemed to shrink as he whispered, **"kill him."**

Naruto was pissed, his anger was bursting at the seams, "Where is he?" the boy growled out.

" **Who?"** the fox asked, finally snapped out of his crying fit. **"I'm sorry,"** he quickly added.

"The bastard who murdered my father," the boy said with such malice it made the Bijuu question who the demon was supposed to be.

" **I'm right here Naruto,"** the Kyuubi said, **"And I'm sorry I killed your father, I'll face whatever retribution you have to give."**

Naruto just rubbed his eyebrows in annoyance, "Not you, you stupid fox," Naruto said in an annoyed voice. "God, I'd almost rather deal with the stick up your ass than this pissy self-pitying act right now."

" **Sorry,"** the Kyuubi apologized sheepishly.

"Don't turn freaking Canadian* on me, don't apologize so goddamn much," the blonde said, annoyed at the troublesome Bijuu. How come the strongest being in existence was such a wimp?

" **Sorry, but what is Canadian?"** the fox questioned, confused at the unfamiliar word.

"Don't worry about it," the blonde said, chuckling at his own joke. However, his mood shifted back to anger, "No, I wanted to know where that bastard bandage guy is?"

" **Konoha, I think"** the fox responded.

Naruto took a mental note to return to Konoha after his training. He needed to kick some ass, and bandages wouldn't be enough to fix the damage he would do.

"I have a question that I want to ask you," Naruto told the Kyuubi.

" **What is it Naruto?"**

"Well, Kyuubi can't be your name, so what is it?"

The Kyuubi just laughed and smiled, **"Not even Kushina knew that, It's Kurama."**

Naruto's mood suddenly darkened again, "well then Kurama, why the fuck did you abandon me for all these years? If you're so torn up about killing my parents, then why weren't you there for me?" asked Naruto. His anger at his abandonment lashed out at Kurama, making the Bijuu wince.

" **After failing your parents, I wanted to make you hate me,"** explained the Bijuu.

"Why the fuck would you want that?" Naruto asked, still angry.

" **To atone,"** Kurama explained.

Naruto sighed, "Kurama, you didn't have to atone for anything, I just needed someone to be there, screw the past you, I needed the present you."

" **Wait,"** Kurama said, **"if you say I don't have to atone for anything, does that mean I'm forgiven?"** the fox asked hopefully.

"No Kurama, if what you said was true, everything that happened was not your fault, and all of the villagers are idiots for calling you a demon, not that the fact that they are stupid hasn't been established already," then Naruto ironically gave the fox a foxy grin, "And if you still insist on atoning, then I have an idea that involves asking the idiot duo for art lessons," the blonde suggested, wiggling his eyebrows.

" **No I think I'm good,"** the Bijuu said, sweating intensely, **"I can see what you can see, and I know that there is something wrong with their heads."**

Naruto nodded, "Then you know about the Akatsuki's plan to free you, am I correct?" the boy asked.

The large beast in front of him nodded, **"It's surprising that it took this long to figure out how to free a Bijuu from its Jinchuriki. And to think that it took a band of misfits to do it, is quite ironic,"** the beast chuckled, essentially shaking the whole mindscape, **"But yes, the only way for you to survive is for both of us to willingly let go of the other, and for me to leave some chakra to stay with you. This is common knowledge to all of the Bijuu,"** explained the fox.

"Wait, then why don't all of the Bijuu free themselves?" the blonde asked, confused.

" **Naruto, if you had to choose freedom or safety, which would you choose?"**

"I don't know what that has to do with anything, but I would rather choose freedom," Naruto answered, "I just don't think you are truly living unless you are free," the blonde said truthfully.

" **I agree with you, however not everyone thinks that way, Bijuu included,"** Kurama explained to the boy in front of him, **"the second that a Bijuu leaves its Jinchuriki, the Bijuu will get hunted down to be placed in yet another Jinchuriki. Many of my brothers and sisters do not wish to roam free in a world where they are hunted, preferring to be in a safe place, despite being sealed."**

Naruto understood the reasoning behind that train of thought. And couldn't help but ask the question bugging him, "Now that you know what the Akatsuki is going to do, if we succeed in freeing all of the Bijuu, what will you do Kurama?"

The fox took a second in responding to the question, **"I would most likely spend all of my time at the land of the fox summons, it is safe from human harm and I could spend time with my mate."**

Naruto had an incredulous look on his face, "mate?"

The Kyuubi had a smirk on his face, **"Why yes, I have a mate. Why are you so shocked? I am a lot older than you Naruto. It should come as no surprise that I have a mate."**

"Well no, your age isn't the problem, It's more the fact that you are a crybaby," Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head.

" **I'm only like that when you mention Minato and K-Kushina,"** the fox whined.

"Whatever, you've convinced me," said Naruto.

" **What did I convince you of?"** asked the Bijuu.

"To free you," Naruto stated simply.

" **Wait, why? Don't you know that it's incredibly painful?"**

"I can deal with the pain as long as it gives you freedom, I have to agree with Obito, Bijuu are a lot more complex than humans give them credit for. I consider you a friend now, and I can't stand being the cause of stripping a friend of their freedom, especially since I doubt that you would hurt a fly," explained Naruto.

The Bijuu started crying again, causing Naruto to get annoyed at his crybaby of a friend.

" **God, you're just so similar to M-Minato and K-Kushina that it just makes me want to cry,"** the Bijuu said, wailing quite loudly.

"Will you stop crying so we can get on with freeing you?" the annoyed blonde asked.

This caused the fox to calm down after a few sniffles, **"Fine but before we go through with it, I want to give you something."**

"What is it Kurama?"

The fox didn't respond. Kurama lifted a paw through the cage and touched Naruto on his right arm. A black tattoo appeared on Naruto's arm, it was just a simple nine.

"What did you do Kurama," he asked, examining his arm.

" **I made it and infused some chakra in it so that we can still talk over any distance. It also has the ability to summon me to your side exactly once, I trust that you know what that time is,"** Kurama explained, causing Naruto to nod. The Kyuubi continued, **"I would make you the first fox summoner, however, seeing as foxes are creatures that don't like to be tied down, I don't think the rest of the summons would approve."**

Naruto nodded, somewhat disappointed, but still grateful for the thought.

" **All you have to do for this process is just lie down and prepare for what is to come. Now then, are you ready to relinquish your status as a Jinchuriki?"**

Naruto thought of all the times that he had been hated for his status as a Jinchuriki, or worse, been ignored by the people he had wanted acceptance from the most. Naruto thought of all the teachers who had sabotaged his learning. Naruto thought of all of the people his age who were told to avoid him. Naruto thought of all the pain he went through in his life because of his status as Jinchuriki.

However, Naruto also knew that his status as a Jinchuriki made him who he was. He would have never met the people he had, his precious people, had it not been for the Kyuubi being inside of him. Naruto knew that being a Jinchuriki had its perks as well. His chakra reserves would grow smaller due to this process. He would lose his trump card in a fight.

Naruto finally reaffirmed his resolution and let his tenant know his decision by sitting down and preparing for what was to come.

" **I am about to start, good luck,"** wished the Bijuu. He looked at the boy with pure affection in his gaze.

And then it hit him. The pain washed over him like a wave. It hit him both with the bluntness of a freight train and the sharpness of a sword. Naruto couldn't think, his mind became blank as the pain overwhelmed him.

Naruto had never felt pain of this kind before. The pain that he had felt while under Izumi's genjutsu could barely be considered a warm up compared to this. It felt like his cells were both pulling apart and burning at the same time.

Naruto couldn't even scream. It would have caused even more pain than he was feeling, not that Naruto could think that was possible.

Pain blocked his vision as a wall of black. He couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything, couldn't feel anything. Except for pain.

Time dragged on for Naruto. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours, and hours felt like days.

After what felt like days of enduring this hell, Naruto started going crazy. He felt like giving up, like life wasn't worth living through pain like this. That is, until he started seeing and hearing things, almost like in a dream.

He saw a girl with black hair and onyx eyes, skin pale like a doll's, smile down at him with her soft lips. She looked at him with a gaze full of love. She held his hand. It was soft and warm at the same time. She kept on whispering in his ear that she believed in him.

He saw a blonde man on his left side and a redhead on his right. Both put a hand on his shoulder, he felt strength from the contact. They looked at him with gazes full of unadulterated love. They whispered in his ears that they were proud of him no matter what.

He kept hearing a deep voice telling him to stay strong and to never give up.

This gave him the strength to move on, to keep enduring the pain that he was feeling. This strength did not diminish the pain, in fact, the pain felt stronger than before. However, there was a goal before Naruto now. He would endure this.

It seemed like the pain went on for days. Naruto had gotten used to the pain to the point where he regained some mental faculty. However, this made it worse for the blonde. Now, not only was he in excruciating pain, but also was facing boredom.

He felt like the torture would never end, it was like going to school all over again, except with pain added on.

His boredom was soon fixed, albeit in an unpleasant way. The pain reached a new height and Naruto lost his ability to think again. Once again, his vision and mental capacities became discontinued.

Pain was the only sensation that he felt, and it felt like the only sensation he would ever feel. However, after an unknown time had passed, the pain started to wane.

It was a gradual change, oh so very gradual, but once it started, it didn't start. At first, it was only the difference between being crushed by a billion pounds and being crushed by 999,999,999 pounds. But as time went on, the changes grew slightly until Naruto could finally think and feel again. However, his vision had yet to come back to him yet.

When he could finally think and feel sensations other than pain, he started manipulating his chakra and could tell a major difference. Not only was it easier to do so, but Naruto was the most efficient he had ever been in making his chakra flow to points on his body.

The greatest difference however, was the purity of his chakra. No longer was there any malevolent chakra mixed in with his own. His chakra felt clean and untainted for the first time.

Naruto knew that it had worked so far, that the Bijuu, Kurama, had left his body. Naruto almost sighed in relief at the fact that he was not a Jinchuriki anymore. At the same time however, he knew that he was going to miss the big crybaby of a fox, despite being friends with him for a short time.

Naruto also noticed that his chakra pool was significiantly smaller compared to before. However, it was still bordering on Kage level size. Naruto was happy, he got the best of both worlds, both a large chakra pool to pull from yet, it was a small enough one to learn to manipulate it efficiently.

Soon the pain dropped to the level that a normal human can handle. By this time, Naruto had regained full mental capacity and sensation. Yet, his sight was still just a wall of black.

Naruto waited, knowing it would return eventually. And true to his thoughts, it slowly did.

Soon, Naruto could see different colors, and then he could see the outline of certain objects, and finally he could see the vaguest details of the room that he was in. His vision however, was still fuzzy and couldn't see that clearly.

By the time that he turned his head, his vision had cleared up to see dark onyx eyes stare at him full of concern.

And he smiled.

Chapter 6 end

*This is not a diss against Canadians. It's an inside joke because my friends call me Canadian due to me apologizing all of the time when I've done nothing wrong.

A/N: Hello, Author here. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I would have had it out earlier however, halfway through writing it I had changed my mind on how I wanted it to go and so I started over. Sorry if this chapter was a wee bit short, before I write, I decide on an event that I want to end the chapter on and I'll end there, no matter how long or short it takes to get me there. I had an issue with this chapter because this 'meeting the Kyuubi' scene seems to be the most done scene in the Naruto fanfiction world. I know I'm not the best at fleshing out characters in a scene and so I try to make up for it by using interesting ideas and concepts. I wanted to do something not done very often and original so that's why I made Kurama to be a wimp, since I have not seen that done before (if someone knows of one please let me know since I want to read how they carried it out). I tried to write more dialogue in this chapter because I know that this story is lacking in that. I know this chapter was supposed to be dark and serious, but I just can't do that. That's not how I look at the world, I try to find humor in serious situations and so I'm trying to write an overarching serious plot with humor found throughout all of the chapters. Sorry about the huge paragraph and Thanks for reading. Please review.


	7. Chapter 7: The First Day

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Warning: I've never written an actual fight scene before so... I'm just going to apologize beforehand

Chapter 7: The First Day

A week later:

Light flooded through the closed window of the simple room. The early morning sun brought light into the room due to the shades being carelessly left open. The room consisted simply of a closet, a mirror, a bookcase, and a bed, just the simplest commodities for a legend in the making. The floor was an absolute mess however, clothes were thrown carelessly on the ground, a pile of empty ramen cups were in the corner, and scrolls were left half-read on the floor. Lying on the bed in a mess of sheets was a young boy with wild blonde hair and fox-whiskers on his cheeks.

The light in the room finally made Naruto lazily open his eyes. His vision was hazy from his deep sleep as he looked around in his surroundings. Instead of being disgusted by the mess, the boy just smiled, finding solace in the chaos around him. Once his vision had been rid of the sleepy haze, he looked through the window at the beautiful weather. It was sunny with not a cloud in sight, the temperature was neither hot nor cold, and birds were singing songs of love to their mates. It was a perfect day to start training.

'Oh shit,' he thought as he struggled to tangle himself out of the mess that was his covers. Once he had escaped from the clutches of his bed, he quickly went to get dressed. He opened the door of the room to grab the stack of clean clothes for the day that were invariably placed in front of his door every day for the past week. Today, it was black ANBU style pants that had an orange stripe down the pant leg, a mesh shirt, a black jacket of tough material, and blue gloves. He quickly put on his clothes, falling only once while putting on his pants due to rushing, and left the room.

He rushed to the dining room where he had all of his meals, save for the ramen that he sneaks into his room. The large hallways were uncharacteristically quiet, with no sign of the rambunctious members of Akatsuki anywhere. Not that Naruto minded, his mind was still groggy from sleep and didn't feel like dealing with their shenanigans for the time being. Upon entering the dining room with the incredibly long table, Naruto noticed the lack of presence of any member from the criminal organization. He made his way to his usual spot at the table and found both breakfast and a note on his placemat.

He read the note:

"Eat this quickly and make your way to the training grounds we showed you yesterday, we are waiting for you. Try to come quickly, knowing the two idiots, they'll start fighting if they just keep waiting and I'd rather not have another training field destroyed. –Izumi"

Naruto debated on throwing the note away after he was done with it, but since it was from Izumi, he kept it. Naruto followed her orders and after saying grace, ate the large amount of rice and fish on the plate at a pace that would be considered disgusting if anybody else saw it. When done, he put his plate in the sink in the kitchen that was directly adjacent to the dining room. The last time that he had tried to leave his plate on the table, Konan threatened to castrate him.

'I'll never let her see my room,' the boy thought, in fear of losing his gonads.

He quickly made his way to the training grounds, not getting lost in the large and complex base owned by the Akatsuki. He finally got to the door that led to the outside training grounds after about five minutes. He opened the door up, to reveal a view of a large forest. In the center of the forest was a small clearing of open grass that had a pond in the center.

Standing in the center of the pond as if it were perfectly normal were all of the members of Akatsuki . When they noticed their new apprentice's presence, they simultaneously turned. Naruto smiled at the sight of his new family. It was a true smile that could brighten up the day of anyone, and it did. All of the members smiled back, except for Konan, she held a softer expression though. At the sight of Izumi smiling, Naruto blushed a bit and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.

Kisame snickered at this, and chalked this up to a long list of such occurrences in the past week. He couldn't help but make fun of Izumi for it, "Izumi, you're already wanted for the murder of your clan, now we'll have to add stealing to your list of crimes," he said in a sarcastic tone.

Naruto cocked his head, not quite getting at what Kisame was hinting at.

Izumi while appreciating the joke, did not want to be bested by her disciple in messing with others, "At least I don't get off on fish, geez Kisame, did your mom have sex with a fucking shark?" Kisame had no response to this, as he had wondered the same thing. He knew he had been bested by her and shut up as a sign of submission.

Pain decided to start the long day of training before they got sidetracked like they always did. He coughed loudly, getting everyone's attention, "Now, Naruto we are about to start your first day of training. We will not all train you today. You're not ready to study the more complicated stuff until we get you up to snuff in the basics, such as your conditioning, chakra control, taijutsu, and evasion. Therefore, Kakuzu will work with you all morning on conditioning, after lunch I will work on your taijutsu for two hours, after that Deidara will handle your chakra control, and Izumi will work on your chakra control after dinner," Pain explained.

Naruto nodded, excited to finally get to training. He had been forced to stay in bed for the five days after Kurama had been released from him, as he had only been cleared to move yesterday. Zetsu, the medic of the criminal organization, had said that his body had taken a beating from the extraction process. That, along with the fact that his abnormally fast healing rate was lessened without the Kyuubi helping his Uzumaki blood, caused it to take five days to heal instead of only one.

All of the members of Akatsuki vanished into the trees in order to watch their new student's first day, while at the same time being out of the way. Only Kakuzu remained. Naruto was nervous, he knew he had ridiculous stamina, but the idea of being put through the ringer by such advanced shinobi made him sweat a bit.

"Well I'm going to start immediately since time is money not acquired from missions we could be doing right now. I'm only going to tell you that I'm going to be focusing on developing both your speed and stamina. Let's do a short warm up of ten laps around the forest and if you don't go fast enough for my liking I will whip you," Kakuzu said with a scary look in his eyes.

He then went up to the young boy with a seal in his hand and placed it on the boy's stomach. "So you can't use chakra to help you in this," Kakuzu explained briefly. In a voice that left no questions, he said, "Now go."

A distance away Kisame heard the warm up for the boy and felt sympathetic, most experienced jonin couldn't do what Kakuzu planned. The forest was around a mile and a half in perimeter. He looked over to Izumi, who was standing on the branch next to him and smirked, "This could get pretty kinky," Kisame said, "taking notes Izumi?" She only rolled her eyes in response. 

Naruto set off at a pretty swift pace in order to not feel the sting of those cords. He only made it three hundred meters before he felt a sharp pain sting his shoulder. It made him wince at the pain. He picked it up another notch. This time, he made it four hundred meters before he felt the pain in his other shoulder.

This process continued until Naruto realized that Kakuzu wanted him to run at a full sprint. Even after that, the second that he would slow down by a slight margin, Kakuzu would whip him like a horse to make him go back to his fastest speed.

What made it worse was the fact that there were pitfalls and traps hidden on the perimeter of the forest. Naruto set off about half of them and would have to escape without using his chakra. All the while, Kakuzu would whip him, and say, "You just died on the battlefield." Naruto just grit his teeth and kept going.

Naruto's breathing grew haggard after the first lap. After the second lap, his legs burned like acid. By the third lap, Naruto had no energy left.

Kakuzu was growing harsher in his treatment of Naruto. He would be quicker to use the whip and his tone of voice grew incredibly annoyed.

Finally by the seventh lap, when Naruto's sprint was barely faster than a walking pace, Kakuzu had enough, "Why am I even wasting time on you, if a competent shinobi attacked you, you 'd have died a thousand times by now, we'll just stop here on the conditioning before you waste more of my time," Kakuzu said with a sigh.

Naruto just collapsed. Even with his massive stamina, he could barely get enough air. His muscles were on fire and his vision was foggy. This was the most tired he had ever felt. But more than that, he felt frustrated. He saw the disappointed look in his teacher's eyes and was mad. To sprint for ten laps around the forest was way too unreasonable!

Those were his last thoughts before he passed out.

Naruto opened his eyes to find himself looking at a ceiling. It was a tall ceiling that he recognized. He was on a couch and he turned his head to see the dining table with all of the members eating. 'Someone must have brought me here,' the blonde thought.

After much struggle, Naruto got up from the couch and walked to his spot at the table. No one acknowledged that he had came to the table and suddenly felt lonely. 'They must be mad at me for failing their expectations this morning, well it's not like they should have expected anything from me in the first place. I wasn't even that strong before, and now I don't even have the Kyuubi in me,' Naruto thought bitterly.

Naruto quickly ate his lunch that consisted of many sandwiches and went back to the training ground to await his next sensei. Naruto sat down in the grass and looked up at the clouds as they rolled by. The gentle breeze mixed with the warm sun made him feel at peace as he sat there. His vision however, was soon swallowed up by black and red. Pain was standing over Naruto in his Akatsuki cloak.

"You ready?" asked the orange haired man.

Naruto sat up with a groan and sighed, "I guess."

"I am going to be teaching you a taijutsu style called the snake strike," explained the man.

Naruto shivered, he had a strong dislike for snakes. The last experience he had with them involved a slightly pedophilic individual that scarred his memories. "But Ero Pain, I hate snakes," the blonde complained.

Pain hit the boy in the head for his use of Pain's least favorite nickname.

"The snake strike style doesn't actually involve snakes. This style involves fast, precise strikes to vital areas. It's called the snake strike because like a poisonous snake, it only takes one attack to kill," Pain explained. Naruto became excited because of how badass it sounded.

"This is why we have you conditioning for speed, so that you can make it more effective. Remember, if a fight turns into a game of one-upmanship you are doing it wrong. It is best to be like a true ninja and go for the kill before the opponent has time to respond," Pain continued to explain. Naruto's mood suddenly shifted to depression at the mention of the earlier conditioning. Pain noticed this but decided to ignore it.

"Now I'm going to teach you the katas for this technique and we'll get into a quick spar to test how well you learned it," to this, Naruto nodded hesitantly.

Pain began to show the basic techniques of the taijutsu style. As Pain had said, Naruto found that the moves needed to be done quickly in order to be effective. There was very little power in each strike, but the lethalness more than made up for it. Instead of each move setting up for one big moment to win in a fight like Naruto's style, each individual strike had intent to kill.

Naruto learned some of the basic strikes that consisted of one or two kicks and hand strikes to the heart, eyes, head, neck, and groin. Pain slowly corrected his form to the point where it was perfect. He painstakingly corrected each small error in positioning and execution. The smallest error and Naruto would have to redo it, until Pain was satisfied. The hand strikes were also weird for Naruto. Instead of using fists to strike, the snake strike used the fingers outstretched like a blade.

After about an hour of practicing technique, Pain decided Naruto should use it in a spar. The two stood opposite of each other in the clearing, ready to spar. Naruto was nervous, he knew he was outclassed and new to this style, he just hoped he would get at least a good strike on the man.

"Hajime," Pain said.

Naruto jumped forward, jabbing at Pain's heart. Pain swept the strike aside. Naruto went for another jab aiming for the eyes. Pain ducked under the strike and sent him flying with a punch to the stomach. Naruto, seeing that he was flying towards a tree, used the tree as a spring board and flew back towards his combatant. He aimed a strike at Pain's throat, only to be grabbed by the wrist and thrown to the ground.

Naruto heard a crack and felt massive pain in his ribs. He gritted his teeth and launched a kick from the ground at the orange haired man. Pain just grabbed his foot and threw him. Naruto flew into a tree with a loud _thunk_! Naruto's breath got knocked out of him, his breathing was heavy. He got up and ran at the man again, launching a strike at his heart, willing for his fingers to make contact with the man. Pain just sidestepped the attack and launched a kick at the boy's knees. Naruto managed to jump in time to avoid it, only to be sent flying with a punch.

He got up and charged at the man, sending three swift strikes at his eyes, heart and groin. All three were dodged. Naruto launched himself in a flying kick aimed towards Pain's head. Pain ducked letting Naruto fly over his head. In an act of acrobatics, Naruto contorted mid air and sent a strike to the back of Pain's neck. Pain did a spinning kick aimed at Naruto's chest that connected, sending the air out of his lungs in a huff. In the air, Naruto used his fall to deliver an axe kick at Pain's head. He sidestepped, letting Naruto kick through air. Pain then turned, and kicked the boy, who landed across the clearing.

Naruto's movements were slow, his muscles fatigued. Naruto was bruised and battered. He was in a heap on the soft ground and he didn't want to get up. That is, until he remembered the calm expression that Pain had on his face, as if it was just a walk in the park. Naruto never expected to win, but he didn't think he would be that disrespected. Red engulfed Naruto's vision as he got up through sheer effort. He was huffing and heaving but he didn't care.

He ran at Pain one more time, and sent punch after punch towards the man, not caring where it hit, only that it made contact. He got even more frustrated when Pain dodged them all. Naruto sent a punch with all of his power towards his face. Pain pivoted in order to get behind the attack and sent a chop to Naruto's neck. It connected.

Naruto became unable to move as he lied on the ground with Pain over top of him. Pain had a look of disapproval on his face. He just sighed, "You would have lasted longer if you stuck with the snake strike until the end. Instead you lasted," he took a look at his clock, "two minutes and thirteen seconds, I expected better."

He shook his head and walked away saying, "Deidara will come in fifteen minutes, by that time you should be able to move again."

Naruto was frustrated. He gritted his teeth, and swore. This poor job he had been doing just proved the fact that he had failed being a ninja multiple times for a reason. He didn't know why they didn't just get rid of him. Now that he didn't have the Kyuubi, he had no ninja skills worth mentioning. He didn't have the basics down, and he didn't have much potential.

'I still have to do this though, I promised that I would do everything possible for the Akatsuki, and I don't back down on a promise,' the boy thought to himself.

True to Pain's word, by the time that Deidara came, Naruto became able to move again. He heard his joints pop and his muscles burnt. There was a sharp pain in his ribs that didn't go away since the spar with Pain. His skin was already black and blue. He didn't want to see what it looked like underneath his shirt where he suffered the most abuse from Pain and Kakuzu. Overall, he was able to move, but barely.

Naruto watched as Deidara stuck a hand in a pouch, forming clay in his hands. Deidara looked at Naruto with a sadistic grin, "Run," he said. Naruto saw where this was going and jumped into the trees, ignoring the acidic feeling in his limbs.

Naruto jumped, tree to tree. His breathing haggard. Escape. He had to escape. His muscles burning, screaming at him to stop. He ignored that feeling in favor of the fear of the pain that would come from his sensei. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. His legs pumped, chakra being allocated to them to get away. Away from the explosions he knew would come.

And come they did.

 _Boom!_

An explosion came from Naruto's left, about ten meters away. Naruto almost slipped of the branch he was on due to the explosion, but his chakra held him on. He picked up his speed. His limbs protested. Naruto's heart pounded in his chest. His lungs worked in overdrive. But he had to move. Had to escape.

 _Boom!_ An explosion to his right.

 _Boom!_ An explosion came behind him. This time it was closer. Naruto flinched and looked behind him.

He turned back to the front, only to be met with the sight of a white clay bird. Naruto quickly made his signature hand sign, " **Kagebunshin no Jutsu,** " he yelled. Another identical copy of Naruto appeared next to the original and pushed the blonde to the side.

Naruto saw a flash of white. _Boom_! The bird exploded. The evasive maneuver didn't work as Naruto still got caught in the explosion.

Naruto opened his eyes to see the sunlight shining through the forest canopy above him. His ears were ringing from the explosion. His vision was fuzzy. His heart beat was still rapid. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, making his mind rush a mile a minute. His body was in pain and he had no strength left. He wanted to just lay there. No training he had ever done had been this intense.

But, the threat of danger was still looming. Through sheer force of will, Naruto got up and climbed the tree next to him. Every movement caused excruciating pain. But, he had to hurry, more of those blasted clay demons could come any second, and he couldn't run any more.

When he finally got to a branch, he hid his presence, the same way that he had hidden from the Konoha ANBU after a prank. He willed his breathing to slow. He hid himself in the shadows.

He only had to stay hidden from that sadistic bastard for about an hour before the evasion exercise would finish. He smiled knowing that the blonde Akatsuki member would never find him. Hiding was his only ninja skill that he was confident no one could match him in. He had used it many times to escape punishment for his pranks in the village.

He looked at the sun and felt its warmth. The cool breeze rustled the leaves on the branch that he was sitting in. He felt relaxed for the first time since his spar with Pain. He sighed in relief, closing his eyes as he leaned his head against the trunk of the tree.

A few moments later he opened his eyes. On the branch was a centipede. Except it was pure white. And glowing.

"fu-"

He never finished that sentence.

Chapter 7 End

A/N: Well I hope that wasn't too bad of an attempt. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I figured that Naruto's first day of training should be bad since he doesn't really know the basics and some of his stamina from the Kyuubi would be gone. If you think his teachers are being a bit harsh, it's because they are. But, there's a reason for that, which will be explained next chapter, hopefully. On another note, a fairly decent sized contradiction was pointed out to me (very respectfully) in the story by a reviewer. In the first chapter Kisame made a reference to Zetsu being able to heal Naruto if he rips his leg off during the kidnapping. This is a contradiction for two reasons, first, Naruto was under the genjutsu at the time and since I explained that all of the events in the genjutsu played out according to Naruto's preexisting knowledge and there is no way for him to know about Zetsu and therefore Kisame shouldn't have been able to say that, and second, I didn't even originally make Zetsu a member of Akatsuki because I hate his guts. In this chapter, I rectified the second part of this conundrum by making Zetsu a medic, which allows me to ignore him as a character while still fixing the mistake. I'm sorry though I couldn't come up with anything to fix the first problem that sounded reasonable. So I'm probably going to edit the first chapter eventually to change that line. I hope the slip up there doesn't affect the overall enjoyment of the story. To the reviewer who pointed that out, thank you. And if anybody else sees any glaring contradictions please let me know so I can fix them. Sorry for the word wall here and lack of dialogue in the chapter. Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8:Physics Is Not His Strong Suit

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Naruto

Chapter 8: Physics Is Not His Strong Suit

'My body hurts so FUCKING much,' Naruto thought while staring at the now-familiar ceiling. He had seen this ceiling for the second time that day. It was a pretty shitty day for the young blonde. And if his most recent memories before waking up served correctly, then he had failed his senseis three times.

'About to be four,' Naruto thought, his pessimistic side showing. It wasn't that he was usually so unenthusiastic about training. But, he had already failed three times and those were all things he was confident in. His energy, his fighting ability, and his evasion were all things he excelled at back in Konoha. However, chakra control was something he always sucked at, to the point where he couldn't even do a simple **bunshin.** So Naruto couldn't even fool himself into thinking this next training session would be anything but atrocious. . He loved training, but only when it was remotely productive.

Plus, his teacher was Izumi. He dreaded disappointing her like he had with Kakuzu, Ero Pain, and Deidara.

He got up off the couch with great difficulty, as his muscles were incredibly sore. He was glad that he was done with physical activities for the day. Naruto walked over to the table and sat down in his spot. His dinner was there for him, and Naruto noticed the lack of a note. 'They must have stopped caring,' he thought.

He ate dinner quickly since he was famished from the earlier training and had yet to eat since before his spar. After eating however, the boy sat there, listening to the grandfather clock in the room tick by. A few seconds of ticking turned into a minute, and then five, and then fifteen. He couldn't find any motivation to go to his next disastrous training session.

After another fifteen minutes, the clock said that it was seven at night. At this point, Naruto figured he should go before Izumi kills him. He walked through the hallways towards the training grounds. He made slow progress through the grand halls. Naruto purposely took the long way in order to push off this unpleasant experience that he was walking towards. Each step raised the dread filling Naruto's stomach to a new pitch. Sweat made his normally tan skin, pale and clammy.

When Naruto finally reached the door to the training grounds, Naruto was a nervous wreck. He felt as if he was about to take one of Iruka-sensei's history tests. He remembered the time that he had been to these same doors earlier that morning. Naruto wished that he had that same confidence that he usually had, but he could not find it anywhere within himself.

He opened the door after much hesitation, and stepped outside. It was dark outside, but the moon and the fireflies lighting up the night sky made it easy to see. It gave the night a phantasmal atmosphere.

Izumi was standing in the center of the clearing facing away from Naruto. As Naruto approached the black haired woman, said woman noticed his presence and turned. A smile rested on her face as she recognized who it was that approached her. As he gazed at her, all of Naruto's doubts melted away. He no longer worried about failing her expectations, he was only relieved to be in her presence.

In the past week, Naruto had been in her presence quite often. Each time he saw Izumi, it was like his first time seeing her. Being in her company was a breath of fresh air. She was smart, beautiful, powerful, and had a comforting aura about her. Naruto's strong sense of smell even picked up her vanilla scent, which made him blush for some reason. She even had a sense of sarcasm that was sharper than a knife.

They had grown close in the past week, especially after extracting the Kyuubi. She would visit him while he was told to stay in his room and rest. Sometimes they would talk about food they liked, which of course led to Naruto ranting about ramen. Sometimes they would talk about their dreams. Sometimes they would banter back and sometimes they would just bask in each other's presence. Naruto saw her like the family he had never had.

Seeing her smile at him gave Naruto a sense of confidence that he did not have before. She believed in him. 'I may not believe in myself at the moment, but I'll believe in the her that believes in me,' Naruto thought.

"So how was your nap Naruto-kun? Were you tired?" She asked with a grin.

"I wasn't tired Izumi-chan, and you know damn right well as to why I was unconscious," Naruto just grumbled at the teasing he was dealt. He should have expected this treatment, he was dealing with Izumi after all.

"You were unconscious?!" She asked in fake shock, putting her hand over her mouth to cover her smirk.

Naruto rolled his eyes, "No, I was just tired after dealing with Tweedle Dee from the idiotic art fanatics and decided a nap was a good idea," he would try to beat her at her own game, as was custom between the two.

"Didn't you know that you're supposed to shower before you do that, your sweat stunk up the whole dining room, it ruined Pain-sama's wonderful cooking," she said, nudging him in the side.

Naruto looked up at her taller form and grinned, "Yeah because that's what ruined Ero Pain's cooking, not the lack of seasoning," he said.

"Or somehow burning the inside, while keeping the outside raw, God knows how he did that," Izumi added, shuddering at the memory of the horrible meal. At least it was only his turn to cook twice a week.

"Of course God knows how he did that, since apparently, he is God," Naruto said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Izumi snorted at the reminder of their leader's God complex. Naruto thought the snort was hilarious and started laughing at the girl's expense. Izumi started pouting and feigning a hurt expression. Naruto thought the expression was cute, but decided to laugh harder instead. That isn't to say he didn't file that expression into his memory to recall later.

When Naruto started laughing wildly at her expression, Izumi couldn't help but join in as well. She couldn't help but feel that his moods were always contagious. Soon, the two ninja laughed until their sides hurt. Izumi thought that the situation in itself wasn't that funny, but the little ball of sunshine known as Naruto Uzumaki always seemed to make her feel positive emotions once more.

"Well now that you're done with pulling a Nara, we can get on with your last training session of the day."

Naruto grinned at the reference to the lazy clan and thought of Shikamaru. However, not wanting to go down the deep rabbit whole of depression that came from thinking of Konoha, Naruto quickly focused on what the beautiful girl in front of him was going to say.

"In the future I'll be training you in Genjutsu, but before we can do that, you must train your chakra control to an amazing level," Izumi explained.

"Why do I have to do that? I always got by on the control that I had before," Naruto questioned.

Izumi sighed, "Because Naruto-kun, eventually you'll have to take on hordes of shinobi, and you'll need to dispatch them with the least amount of chakra possible, that means you have to be efficient, which results in you needing precise chakra control," she explained.

She continued on, "In the past, you didn't need chakra control due to your monstrous reserves, but now that you do not have the Kyuubi, you can't go around wasting chakra anymore," Naruto's face fell at the reminder that he was weak without the Kyuubi to help him. Izumi, knowing the trail that the blonde's thoughts were taking quickly added, "However, you still have the reserves of a kage-class shinobi. Plus it should be easier to control now that your reserves aren't as monstrous, It's like having the best of both worlds," she explained. Naruto's face turned into a grin as she informed him of this.

She continued, "Now we are just going to have to train your control, you have done the tree walking exercise correct?"

Naruto nodded, "Yeah," he answered, "Kakashi-sensei taught us that and the water walking exercise."

Izumi walked away into the trees, leaving a confused Naruto. Two minutes later, she returned with a wooden wheel, and placed it in front of Naruto. Next, she grabbed five kunai from her holster. With a flick of the wrist she threw one at Naruto's feet at lightning speed, he didn't even see it until it caused him to jump up in surprise.

"Are you trying to disable me!?" he shouted in protest.

"My bad," she said with a smirk, "it slipped."

Naruto glared at her. That was a less believable excuse than Kakashi's worst excuses for being late. Izumi, possibly the world's best kunoichi, would not just 'slip' and throw a kunai at that speed towards Naruto.

Ignoring the glare, while simultaneously holding back laughter, she flicked her wrist again, not even looking at where she was throwing. Almost instantly, four kunai appeared in a perfect square five meters away.

Izumi turned to Naruto, "Do you see this wheel?" she asked.

Naruto gave her a deadpan expression, "No, I don't" he said. He looked Izumi straight in the eye, "I've been meaning to tell you this. I've actually been a blind ninja this whole time. I have been hiding this for years."

Izumi rolled her eyes and gave a small huff, an action which made Naruto's heart stop for a second. A reaction that left him confused. She smiled and laughed, "You idiot, why would you look at my eyes if you're blind?" She began laughing harder and eventually had to force herself to breathe. She was doubled over and on the ground.

Naruto was entranced. No matter how many times that he heard her melodious laugh, it still left him hypnotized every time. Naruto silently resolved to do whatever he could in order to cause her to laugh. He loved every time that she laughed, her eyes would light up full of life, her whole body would shake, and her voice sounded like an angel. He had a certain feeling in his gut as it happened, it felt as if he should know what it was, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Once recovered, Izumi stood up and looked at Naruto, "Well, this wheel is a little bit different. I've used a jutsu on it to make the coefficient of friction between it and the grass about one-fourth of normal," she explained.

"What's that?" the blonde asked, scratching the back of his head in confusion.

Izumi sighed, "Did you pay attention at all when you were taught basic physics?"Naruto shook his head no, "I should have figured that. I basically made it easier to slide across the ground."

"Oh, okay," the blonde said, understanding the oversimplified explanation.

"What you have to do is send chakra to your hands to push the wheel exactly into the four kunai section. If you send too much chakra, it will make the wheel roll way too far, if you don't send enough, the wheel won't go very far," Izumi explained. "Oh, and by the way, as time goes on the coefficient of friction will be changing slightly, so take that into account," she added.

Naruto nodded and looked down at the wheel that went up to his waist in height. He looked down and thought that this would be easy. He brought his hands to the wheel and he prepared to send the least amount of chakra that he possibly could towards his hands. Naruto figured that it would be easier to adjust if he started out less than the needed distance. He felt the familiar tug in his stomach and sent a miniscule amount of chakra to his hands. His chakra control had improved dramatically without the Kyuubi inside of him, and he would not have been able to send this little amount of chakra before the extraction.

Wham!

The wheel went flying into the tree in front of him and slightly to his left, overshooting his target by over thirty meters. It hit with so much impact that the wheel was halfway embedded in the tree.

Izumi whistled, "You could use that as a weapon in the future," she remarked.

Naruto was flabbergasted to say the least. He had barely put any chakra in to his hands, and was sure it wasn't going to move the wheel that much.

"Since the amount of force required to move the wheel is lessened, you have to use almost no chakra. You used about twenty times the amount of chakra that you needed to. Also, it went to the left because you sent a miniscule amount of chakra more to your right hand as opposed to your left," Izumi advised the blonde.

Naruto left his mouth open wide. Twenty times too much chakra was ridiculous, to reduce his output of chakra by that much was borderline impossible. He couldn't do this. It was impossible for him to have any semblance of chakra control, no matter how much he trained, it couldn't happen. All of his doubts came back to him. He suddenly became incredibly nervous and scared that he would fail Izumi too. He couldn't do that. It would ruin everything. He would ruin everything.

While Naruto was having his breakdown, Izumi calmly went over to pry the wheel out of the tree and brought it over to Naruto. She saw that Naruto's confidence was shaken but decided not to say anything because she knew he could get out of his funk.

Reluctantly, he tried again, and this time the wheel went straighter, but the wheel smacked into the tree fifty meters away. Izumi brought it back, and said, "twenty five times too much this time."

He tried again. "Twenty nine times too much chakra, try again", she said.

He tried again. "thirty four times too much chakra, try again" Izumi said.

He tried again. Thirty nine.

He tried again. Forty two.

'Again, again, again, again,again,again,again, again, again, and fucking again.' Naruto thought bitterly. After an hour of this pattern, his control had only gotten worse. The last time he tried, he had used a hundred and thirty times too much chakra.

He heaved. The sound of his haggard breathing was the only thing that he heard. He had his hands on his knees and he hung his head. That blasted wheel was in front of him. Izumi was to his right. He didn't bother looking at her, for fear of seeing the disappointment that he knew was in her eyes.

She had only given him small comment on how to fix it. Naruto knew she had given up on him. Just like hi s other teachers.

He tried one more time and this time he had used one hundred and fifty times too much chakra. He gritted his teeth in anger. Izumi brought the wheel in front of him again. And his anger reached a peak. He grabbed the wheel and threw it against the nearest tree and screamed.

"I'm done with this shit! I'll just leave so that you don't have to waste your time on a fucking failure like me! I'm sure you'd all be happier if I was killed anyway!"

He ran away before he could hear Izumi say, "Wait! Naruto come back!"

He pumped his arms and legs as fast as he could, hot tears burning in his eyes. The calming night atmosphere only seemed to torment the despairing boy. His vision was blurry, so he did not see the wall that was Kisame in his way.

He ran into Kisame with a crash, and ran off without apologizing. Before he knew it, he was at his room and entered with a slam of the door.

Kisame POV:

Kisame only briefly saw the blonde streak across his vision before he felt the impact of the crash. He saw that the blonde streak was in fact Naruto, who ran off without a word.

Finding his actions uncharacteristic of the young boy, the shark-like man continued to check on Izumi. He found her on the ground, crying next to a wooden wheel. He winced, having a pretty good guess at what happened. He turned back on his heels leaving the black haired girl to her own devices. Kisame knew that she liked to be alone during these moments of weakness.

Kisame watched Naruto's attitude and demeanor slowly grow worse over the day. The situation was slowly turning into a powder keg that was ready to explode at any moment. And apparently, it just did. Kisame hurried to Naruto's room before he could do something he regrets.

'Fucking Kakuzu, Pain, Deidara, and Izumi. Why the hell can't you be honest?' Kisame thought angrily as he reached Naruto's door.

He didn't bother knocking as he threw open the door. Inside the room was Naruto packing his clothes into a knapsack. The shark man walked up to the young blonde and slapped him right on his whiskered cheeks. The sound reverberated through the room. Naruto looked at him with a betrayed expression on his face.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Kisame yelled.

Naruto's cerulean blue eyes appeared to be clouded as he looked at the floor. "Leaving," he mumbled.

"And why the fuck would you want to do that?" Kisame asked angrily.

"I don't want you guys to waste any more time on a failure like me. All of my teachers so far have given up on me. It would be better if I left and got killed, besides, without the Kyuubi I'm essentially useless," Naruto stated as if it was fact.

Now Kisame knew exactly what he said to Izumi to make her break down.

"Is that what you really believe?" he asked. Naruto responded with an almost imperceivable nod.

Kisame sighed. He would have to spell it out to the oblivious kid. "Naruto, I'm going to be blunt with you. You are an idiot." Naruto blinked in surprise at the insult.

"No one thinks you are a failure."

"But, they all gave up on me during my training, I failed their training," the blonde responded.

"No, you didn't. First of all, they all had way too high of expectations to begin with. Even I don't have enough chakra control to do that wheel exercise. And second of all, if you could automatically perform the training then it wouldn't really make you better, now would it?"

"I guess not. Wait, their expectations were too high?" Naruto asked.

"Yes, they were. They're regretting the fact that you were forced to join a suicide mission."

Naruto paused, confused, "But I willingly joined," he quickly added under his breath, "After being kidnapped of course."

Kisame sighed, "I know that, but they don't think like that. And to make up for it they want to make you the strongest shinobi alive in order to give you a possibility to survive, especially Izumi."

"Izumi?"

"Yes, Izumi has one of the worst burdens of all of us here. She has lost too many precious people in her eighteen years of life. Now that you came into her life she doesn't want to lose you too. Although, she is too stubborn to admit it." Kisame admitted.

"Wait, so everyone just wants me to become strong?" Naruto asked in a shaking voice.

"Yes, we still believe in you. I still believe in you." Kisame said.

Naruto started crying and wrapped the shark man in a hug. He had heard the exact words he needed to hear.

Kisame didn't normally like soppy situations, in fact he felt like squirming, however if it was for his little brother in all but blood, he would endure it. He put his hand on the young boy's golden locks and rubbed his head. Kisame had to love the boy's innocence and hunger for acceptance, it was pure. In fact, he was sometimes too pure, a trait that brought back bad memories for Kisame.

One moment, he was in Naruto's room, the next, he was standing in the middle of a road, fog obscuring his vision. And his nightmare began.

Chapter 8 End

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Next chapter starts a flashback for Kisame. I've been waiting to write his back story since chapter 1. As for the chakra exercise, I wanted to do something new since all of the known chakra control exercises seemed overdone. However, at first I couldn't come up with something new, until I got inspired by a lab I'm doing in physics class. In the lab we have to find the height that you need to drop it on a ramp in order for it to go down the ramp and stop exactly on the top of the hill. It's really hard because it can be so finicky. And I had a eureka moment and decided to use it for a chakra exercise. Thanks for reading and please review.


	9. Chapter 9: Just For You, Little Brother

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Naruto

Chapter 9: Just For You, Little Brother

 _Several years prior, somewhere in the Land of Water:_

A tall shark like man walked down the middle of a long dirt road.

It was a cool morning, a heavy fog hung low over the dirt road, concealing anything farther than twenty feet away. The fog gave an ominous feeling to the air that unnerved the man. It's not that he disliked fog, in fact, he loved it. Growing up in Kirigakure made Kisame reminded of his home whenever he saw fog. But this morning, it unnerved him. Something felt wrong.

Kisame tried not to let this feeling damper his chipper mood. He reminded himself of what the Sandaime Mizukage had told him earlier. The old man had told him that Kisame could potentially become the next Mizukage. This made him grin.

Despite being part of the elite seven swordsmen of the mist at the young age of seventeen, Kisame had always aspired to be the Mizukage.

Earlier, the Mizukage called him into the office to talk to him. He told Kisame his potential and then gave him the mission that Kisame was currently on. It was simple. He was supposed to go to a nearby village, confirm suspicions of the presence of a kekkei genkai user and report back. It hardly deserved the attention of the second strongest jonin of Kirigakure.

Kisame decided not to question the Mizukage, for he had absolute trust in the man.

Kisame calmly walked down the road, not even caring to avoid the random mud puddles that had formed from the rain earlier in the week. He had no time limit to this mission and it was nearby, so he took his time in the trip. He was well rested for the first time in weeks, his mind clear and sharp. His sharp teeth formed a large smile, all in all, he was having a great day despite this stupid feeling he had.

The fog cleared slightly to reveal a few buildings. It was the start of the village he had needed to get to. Kisame ran the information of the mission through his mind one last time. He had to infiltrate a small village that had a population of only four hundred people. Then he had to find a teenage boy suspected of having the **futton** (boil release) kekkei genkai and report back to the Mizukage. Kisame even had the name of the boy: Mizuki.

This would be too easy.

Kisame walked down the road that ran through the center of the village. Kisame sighed. The village was desolate. Very few people were outside, no businesses were open, and the buildings were falling apart. This sight hurt Kisame's heart deeply.

Kisame did not see a small boy crossing his path and ran into him. He looked down at the boy who had flown back onto the ground. The boy was very dirty, as if it had been years since he had last taken a shower. His dirty clothes, which were no more than rags, clung to his emaciated body. Several ribs seemed to pop out from the boy's stomach. The boy flinched when he saw the tall man look down at him.

Kisame felt it in his heart when he saw the boy and he reached down to pat the boy on the head to comfort him. The boy became scared and ran as fast as he could from the scary man with a sword on his back.

Kisame frowned. This was the type of poverty that he wanted to eliminate when he became Mizukage. He knew that Kirigakure had waged too many battles, only focusing on external affairs and neglecting the people of the Land of Water.

'It seems like the only internal affair they care about is these witch hunts for the kekkai genkai users', Kisame thought.

He had always thought that hunting them down was far too divisive to the country. It will surely cause a civil war in the future. He would have to remedy that when he became the next Mizukage. Just that thought made him grin. He imagined himself wearing the blue kage hat, sitting in a desk, and yelling at foolish genin.

He was brought out of his musings by high pitched screams. Kisame rushed to the source of the screams in the center of the village. He made it there fast, seeing as it was a very small village, only to see a group of about fifty kids standing in a clump. They were all staring at one thing, a sight that made Kisame's blood chill.

An average sized man in shinobi attire was holding a limp child in his arms. The child's head lolled back clearly showing the red slit across her neck. The man casually tossed the little girl aside and went to grab the next closest child. They were all too shocked to move.

Kisame felt anger burn in his stomach. He gritted his teeth and surged forward with all of his strength, grabbing the man's hand, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?", he growled out.

Upon a closer look at the man, Kisame noticed a familiar scar on the man's eyebrow. Kisame recognized his unusual orange eyes and hooked nose. Kisame's eyes widened, it was his sensei.

"My mission. And what do you think you're doing?" his sensei calmly asked.

"Stopping you from killing innocent children, what kind of mission kills children?" Kisame yelled.

At this, the children gathered unfroze and ran away. All the while, black eyes stared down intensely at orange.

"I was told by the Mizukage to kill all the villagers in this village and to eliminate you at the same time", explained the older man.

The lack of emotion in his sensei's voice broke Kisame's heart. Not only had his trusted Mizukage betrayed him, but forced his sensei to do it. Kisame loved Tanaka-sensei with all his heart, he was like a father to the orphaned Kisame. Tanaka-sensei taught him how to be a swordsman, taught him how to take care of himself, and even comforted him when he had been forced to kill his only friend in order to become a genin.

Tanaka-sensei swung the kunai at the younger man. Kisame caught in his other hand. The pain was nothing compared to the pain in his heart. He glanced at the man with a pleading look, "But why?"

"The Mizukage knows you will inevitably become Mizukage, but fears you will allow the village to become weak. Therefore, he wants to eliminate you in order to save the village."

Kisame gritted his sharp teeth, "Simply because I think that murdering civilians of the Land of Water, the people who we serve, is wrong, the Mizukage thinks that I should be killed?"

"No, the Mizukage wants you to be killed because you want to spare the infections that plague this country", the older man corrected.

"How long?", Kisame asked.

"How long what?"

"How long has Kirigakure been a place that betrays its own people? I mean damn, I knew that we persecuted those different from us, but if that wasn't bad enough now we kill our own. When did this fucking happen!?" Kisame started in a barely controlled whisper that quickly turned into a roar.

In his anger, Kisame threw a round house kick. Tanaka quickly ducked under. He swept Kisame off his feet with his leg. Kisame fell with a dull _thunk._ Kisame quickly jumped up and away, putting distance between him and his sensei.

His sensei's eyes grew hard and cold.

He knew that he was a mid to close distance fighter, while his sensei was strictly a close distance fighter. Kisame may have had a larger amount of chakra, but his sensei's skills were top notch in close. Therefore, he wanted to keep his sensei out of his comfort zone as much as possible.

Tanaka brandished twin wakizashis and sent chakra through them, causing the swords to be sharper than usual. He settled into his normal fighting stance by setting his feet wide and putting one sword straight out for attack and the other on guard for defense.

"Ever since I saved you, I've always wanted to kill you. You used to always annoy me with your reluctance to act like a true shinobi and kill", Kisame winced at his Sensei's cruel words.

Kisame slowly unwrapped his own Samehada, dreading the battle to come. His sensei wasn't the best jonin of Kirigakure for no reason. Halfway through unwrapping, Tanaka disappeared in a flash and reappeared next to Kisame, aiming to stab him. Kisame gave up on his task and brought his sword up to guard just in time. Tanaka struck with his other sword. Kisame ducked under it, and sent a kick at his sensei. It connected, making the man fly back.

"Not bad, but still not good enough to beat me", Tanaka taunted.

Before Kisame had a chance to breathe, Tanaka skid to a stop on the ground and disappeared in a flash again. Through pure instincts, Kisame managed to block the sword coming at his back in time. He turned and threw shuriken almost point blank at Tanaka. They connected, only for it to be a water clone that burst into water.

Tanaka came at Kisame's back side and kicked him into the building in front of them. The impact made the house crumble, all of the debris landing on Kisame. Kisame threw the rubble off of him and screamed in anguish. His heart hurt incredibly that he had to fight his sensei.

"It's hard to believe that you're my student. You're so weak." 

He had no choice, he had to go all out, or he would die.

" **Suiton: Suikodan no jutsu** (water style: water shark bullet technique)" Kisame yelled. The sharks made out of water flew at Tanaka at a high speed. Tanaka dodged.

" **Suiton: Suikodan no jutsu** " Tanaka used the same jutsu on Kisame. The sharks were smaller than Kisame's but were much faster.

Kisame flipped through hand seals, " **Suiton: Bakusui Shoha** (Water technique: Exploding Water Shockwave)"

A large amount of water came rushing out of Kisame's mouth. It turned into a large wave that came rushing at Tanaka. The wave swallowed Tanaka's jutsu up and rushed at Tanaka like a tsunami.

Tanaka used every ounce of his speed to dodge the jutsu coming at him. He managed to get out of the range of the jutsu by jumping to the side. To his dismay however, Kisame was right where he was jumping towards. Kisame slashed at Tanaka. Having no way to dodge, Tanaka's skin on his arm was shredded by Samehada.

Tanaka threw a kick at Kisame that connected, and jumped away. Kisame knew he had taken a lot of Tanaka's reserves from him. Tanaka stared at his sensei, whose arm was bleeding profusely. Kisame himself was barely damaged. Due to his large chakra reserves, he could fight for another few hours at full capacity. Kisame charged at his sensei, deciding to press the advantage.

He swung his sword down in an overhead strike. He was blocked by his sensei's two swords. Kisame punched him in the gut. Tanaka doubled over, allowing Kisame the opportunity to knee him in the face. His sensei flew back onto the ground only to get back up in an instant.

Tanaka struck at Kisame with one sword and swung with the other one from the opposite side. Kisame blocked one and dodged the other. The strikes were weak and had no speed to them, it was like fighting a chunin at best. Kisame frowned.

"Just stop this, neither of us want to do this", suggested Kisame.

Kisame launched a swift kick. Tanaka put his guard up only to be sent back twenty feet. Tanaka quickly got up and charged, Kisame sidestepped and sliced his back with Samehada. Tanaka's back was mutilated with the sickening sound of skin ripping.

Kisame knew the fight was over, he had taken most of Tanaka's chakra by this point. The man was also bleeding profusely, his clothes were wet and stained with blood. Tanaka was breathing heavily, as if each breath was a struggle.

Tanaka stood up again, and charged at Kisame. He swung his swords several times. Kisame dodged easily. Left, right, duck, left, sidestep, jump, block, left, right. It felt like some video game cheat code. Kisame grabbed Tanaka's arm at the next swing and flipped the man. Tanaka's body hit the ground with a thud.

"Stop", Kisame begged his master.

And yet, Tanaka still crawled back up again. He was half torn to pieces, limping, and bleeding, but he was still standing. Kisame felt both anguish and pride at this. On one hand, he just wanted his sensei to stay down so that Kisame wouldn't have to kill him. On the other hand, he was proud of his sensei's guts and determination.

"Please just stop, we don't have to do this", Kisame said, desperate.

Kisame knew he could run away from the man at this point, he wouldn't have to resort to killing. But when he looked into his sensei's bright orange eyes, he knew. Kisame knew he couldn't just prematurely end this fight. Kisame knew both ninjas wouldn't be walking away. Kisame knew he would have to kill his father in all but blood.

"Fine, have it your way."

Kisame brandished an extra katana that he always carried around. He would honor his sensei by killing him with the weapon that he had taught him to use.

Tanaka nodded, as if signaling this was the end of the fight.

Tanaka charged, two wakizashis raised, ready to pierce.

Kisame charged, katana in hand, ready to strike down his sensei.

In a quick flash, the exchange decided the fight. Kisame looked down at the sword that had pierced his shoulder. Pain nearly overwhelmed him before he saw his master, making him forget all about the pain. His katana had pierced the man's stomach. Warm blood fell from Tanaka's mouth and landed on Kisame's hands.

Tanaka, losing his strength, fell to the ground. The katana slid out of him, it was red and slick with blood.

Kisame knew the fight was over, and quickly went to his sensei's side. He propped Tanaka's head up with his lap. Tanaka's eyes regained all the warmth and love that Kisame had always known. Hot tears flowed freely from Kisame's eyes. Tanaka coughed up blood again and started to speak.

"My son, my boy, my student, my friend, I am so proud of you", he said with a smile on his face. He looked up into the darkening sky. It was starting to rain.

"When I was given the orders to kill you, I was shocked. I couldn't kill my son. Especially since you were being targeted for being too kind-hearted of an individual. I resolved to fight you here and die by your hands instead."

"But why? Why would you kill those children?" asked the young man through sobs.

Tanaka chuckled, then winced, "I used a **bunshin** and a **henge** in order to trick you. This is an abandoned village, there were no people here to begin with. I knew you wouldn't have fought me otherwise."

Kisame both marveled and despaired at his sensei's brilliance.

Tanaka's breathing grew even more uneven and painful, "My son, my time is coming. The last thing I wish to tell you is this: create that peace you always dreamed of. Leave Kirigakure and the Land of Water, and protect it from the outside. You can't do anymore inside that corrupted village. I believe in you."

With that, Tanaka drew his last breath. His orange lifeless eyes remained staring at the sky. A peaceful smile adorned his face. His sensei was at peace.

The same could not be said of the student. Kisame wailed at the loss of Tanaka. He gritted his teeth in anguish. His vision became blurry due to the tears and the now heavy rain. His wet clothes clung to his skin, and his hair became plastered to his face.

Kisame roared at the sky. At the injustice of it all.

Kisame looked down at his hands. They were still red from his sensei's blood, the blood that he spilled. No. None of this would have happened without the Mizukage. None of this would have happened if the Mizukage hadn't betrayed his trust and tried to assassinate him. Using his Own. Fucking. Sensei.

No, the blood wasn't on his hands. It was on the hands of the Mizukage.

Kisame gained a sadistic smile on his face. 'That son of a bitch is going to die someday, by my hands', he thought.

After fifteen minutes, Kisame quickly took care of his sensei's body. He gently closed Tanaka's eyes, and carried him to the grave he had dug using a **doton** jutsu. Kisame gingerly placed his sensei into the grave, and said a prayer over the body. He then filled the hole back up with the **doton** jutsu. He left his sensei's two wakizashi as a grave marked. Finally, he placed a seal on the grave, so that anyone disturbing it would receive a nasty surprise.

Kisame said one last prayer to his dead sensei, when he remembered what the date was. It was his birthday.

'Happy birthday Kisame. Now you're fucking alone', he thought bitterly.

He walked away, back on the dirt road. Except this time, he was a different man.

 _Back to present, currently in Naruto's room:_

Kisame watched as Naruto was sleeping peacefully in his embrace. Naruto had fallen asleep after crying for a few hours. In his sleep, Naruto gently nudged his head into Kisame's chest. An act which led Kisame to feel even more uncomfortable than he already was.

Kisame hated these touchy feely moments ever since his sensei had died. He used to like them but now he does not.

'Then again, a lot of things have changed because of sensei's death', Kisame thought to himself.

He looked down again at the blonde, and ruffled his hair. Naruto's innocent and trusting nature always did make Kisame feel nostalgic, he was so much like his old self.

"Except this time I'm going to protect you from the world, Naruto. You won't become like me, you'll stay innocent, away from the liars and murderers that run rampant in this world. I'm going to create a world of peace just for you, my brother", He whispered to Naruto as he yawned and sleep overcame him too.

Chapter 9 End

 _Omake :_

( this is an added scene that popped into my mind but it didn't fit at the end due to the mood of the moment, but it was too funny not to put somewhere)

Izumi, Deidara, Pain, and Kakuzu all went together to apologize to Naruto for being too strict with him. They wanted to apologize and explain their actions so that he could put his all into training.

Izumi knocked on the door. Hearing no response, she opened the door to see a surprising scene in front of her. She grinned and walked up to Kisame and Naruto asleep in each other's arms on his bed. She tapped on Kisame's shoulder, waking him up.

Kisame opened his eyes lazily, and groaned a bit. His eyes quickly widened in the realization of the situation he was in. Quickly, Kisame pushed Naruto away, yet somehow the blonde stayed asleep. 'Fuuuuuuuck', he groaned in his mind.

Izumi grinned, "So should I start the baby sweaters now so I can finish them in nine month? I'm sure blue sweaters would go great with their blonde hair and blue skin."

Deidara came rushing in and yelled, "Kisame I didn't know you were gay!"

'I'm going to fucking kill all of them', Kisame thought to himself.

 _The Next Day:_

Naruto arrived at the training area to the sight of all of his sensei's gathered up together. As they explained his training for the day, Naruto couldn't help but notice Izumi smirking and Deidara glancing between him and Kisame, making sexual motions.

'I wonder what that's all about? Whatever, I doubt it has anything to do with me', Naruto thought.

 _Omake end_

A/N: hope you enjoyed this chapter. Sorry it took longer than usual, I had to write a research paper and was really busy with track and stuff. This chapter evolved as I wrote it. Originally, Tanaka was going to be a dick the whole time, and then I thought him pulling an Itachi seemed like a good idea. I know there wasn't too much dialogue sorry about that. I might be able to do one chapter before winter break, but in a few days I'm leaving on a trip to South Korea and will be busy until the end of Winter Break. However, I will try to write a bit then , but no promises. Thank you for reading. And please review, while I do love reviews I'm not desperate for the attention, I just want to know how to improve my writing and storytelling ability.


	10. Chapter 10: No Pain, No Gain

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Naruto

Chapter 10: No Pain, No Gain

Naruto stared at black eyes that looked back at him warily. He was sweating bullets, nervous about the reaction of the possessor of those eyes. Naruto started scratching the back of his head, an old nervous tick that was representative of his current state. The two individuals were standing a few meters apart in a forest clearing. It was early morning and the sun had just risen, the only noises were the birds chirping to each was an awkward silence hanging in the air between Naruto and the individual he was with.

"Will you please tell me why you dragged me out here, Uzumaki-san", the possessor of those black eyes asked coldly.

Naruto flinched. He had woken up early and asked Izumi to meet up with him so he could tell her something. He was hoping to patch up the relationship between him and her, after his outburst the previous night. Naruto knew he went too far. He was afraid that he had made her mad and judging by the tone of her voice and the lack of using his given name, he figured that he was right.

"I uh, just wanted to say um… that… I mean I wanted to uh", he stuttered.

"Get on with it", she snapped.

"IwantedtosayI'msorry", Naruto choked out, barely able to understand.

"Excuse me, what?"

Naruto sighed. He sucked at sincerely apologizing. He had never done it too often, usually opting to come up with excuses or shifting the blame instead. But he knew it wouldn't work with Izumi, and he couldn't afford to lose whatever little positive opinion she held for him.

He took a deep breath, "I wanted to say that I'm sorry", he said slowly this time.

Izumi raised her eyebrow, "Why?" she asked just as coldly.

Naruto thought she looked beautiful mad. He had only ever seen her when she was in a joking and bantering mood, so this was a first for him. Naruto quickly broke eye contact and looked her up and down. Her raised eyebrow, along with her pursed lips, and pale angular face made her look elegant. Her eyes were a raging storm that were mesmerizing. Her lean figure was leaning to one side with her hands on her hips. She was wearing her usual ninja attire that she managed to make look fabulous. Izumi started fingering the kunai strapped to her leg. She was beautiful, but she was also scaring the shit out of him.

Naruto gulped, this could end poorly.

"Yesterday, I put myself under a lot of pressure because I felt like there were a lot of expectations on me. I also felt like I was failing you guys. You were the one person I didn't want to fail and so when I felt that I did, I kind of snapped. I said some things I should not have and for that I'm sorry", Naruto took a pause to take a breath. While pausing, Naruto saw that Izumi was staring at him with her striking eyes and that some of her anger had diffused. Naruto finally added, "I guess I'm just not used to anyone expecting anything from me."

Naruto was looking down somewhat ashamed at that fact. Tears were filling in his eyes, and he saw them fall out of his eyes and into the bright green grass below him. He felt slender fingers under his chin, forcing him to look up. Izumi had closed the gap between them and made him look her in the eyes. None of the anger that was there previously was currently present. Naruto found himself staring at them in awe. He was constantly surprised at the beauty of her eyes, he never thought before that the eyes of a girl could make him weak in the knees, but hers did.

In a soft voice she addressed Naruto, "Naruto-kun, you have the potential for greatness, more so than any person I have ever met. The people who thought you would never amount to anything were ignorant fools. That's why, I guess we, as your teachers expected so much from you. Naruto-kun, you are special, that's why we don't you to ever be hurt. But, as teachers, we failed in realizing that your training has been neglected and that the expectation of you being able to keep up with, possibly the most intense training program ever, was unreasonable." She paused, her voice starting to break. "But, last night, when you said that I'd be happy if you were killed, it hurt me. I've lost too many loved ones in the past, and most of them were my fault. I was hurt that you seemed to have a death wish, and it was because of me. I was reminded of my failures and I tried to keep you at shoulder length to try to protect you", she was now openly crying, tears running down her face. Naruto's stomach tightened at the sight of this girl crying in front of him. Izumi gave a bitter laugh, "But, you see that only lasted less than five minutes."

Naruto lifted up his hands to her face and wiped the tears from her eyes. He brightly smiled, not a forced smile, but his natural one. The whole forest clearing seemed to be illuminated for the two individuals, "I'm not going to leave you, I'll fight the whole world if it's to stay by your side, and that's a promise. And you know I never break a promise."

Izumi seemed to be infected by his spirit as she smiled too. She rolled his eyes at his bravado, "Alright, Mr. hotshot, but how are you going to do that if I can beat your butt with all of my limbs incapacitated?"

Naruto smirked, accepting her bait, "Easy, I'll train my ass off."

He removed his hand that was still cupping her face and walked away from the clearing that the two had shared. He was still grinning as he walked to the grounds where his sensei were meeting him.

He had been too far away to hear Izumi whisper, "Damn, he knows how to get a girl's heart racing."

Naruto never did see the blush that was adorning her face.

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Kisame was the first one of his teachers to make it to the forest clearing. Naruto, who was sitting down in the center of the training grounds, was in the middle of stretching his intensely sore muscles.

"Good morning Nii-san", Naruto greeted in a cheery voice.

Kisame groaned, "I'm not your Nii-san. As far as I know, you have no siblings. And even if you did, I doubt they would have blue skin." This was the first time that Naruto had called him his 'Nii-san' and to say Kisame was not a fan of the mushy term was an understatement. He may think of the boy as his brother but, he would never admit.

Naruto heard the irritation in Kisame's voice and couldn't help but grin, "Whatever you say", Naruto paused for dramatic effect, "Nii-san".

Kisame face palmed. "Anyway, what's got you so chipper in the morning? Don't you know it's too Goddamn early in the morning for anything happy?"

"Not much, just went for a stroll in the woods", Naruto casually lied.

"So you talked to Izumi. That's good, you were both a wreck last night. Plus, this way I don't have to hear the two of you bitch about your little love spat", Naruto turned incredibly red at both the speed in which his lie was detected, and the implications.

"L-love spat?!" Naruto sputtered

Kisame was now trying to hide his grin, "Why yes, a love spat. Isn't that when two people who like each other have a small argument that temporarily halts the relationship, only to be fixed when the two admit their feelings to the other?" He said, deceptively innocently.

"You really think I l-like Izuki?!"

'Jeez does this boy not know anything about having a poker face', Kisame thought.

"Well don't you?" Kisame asked, with a grin. He was unable to hold it in after all.

Naruto looked defeated, obviously his teasing tolerance about love was ridiculously low. "Only a little crush", he mumbled.

Kisame decided that was enough for the moment, this exchange was a success in that he has a weapon to use against Naruto, if he ever becomes too big for his britches.

"Now was that so hard for you?" Kisame's face turned serious, "Izumi's a special girl who has issues with dealing with losing loved ones. But, because of this, she has the capabilities to act incredibly understanding and loyal. I think you two are a good match for each other."

Naruto just nodded, kind of shocked by the swift attitude change. Naruto was about to say something when he was interrupted by the presence of the rest of his masters. All of them had just arrived.

Konan was standing off to the side as usual, looking impassive. Obito looked like his usual bitter self. Sasori had brought a puppet with him to tinker with. Kakuzu was tapping his finger over his crossed arms, looking incredibly impatient. Izumi was looking at Naruto with a slight smile, who had to hide a slight blush at the sight of her. Pain was trying to dust himself off after he was sent flying by Konan due to a stupid comment. HIdan was trying to find a random animal to torture with his ritual, saying something about Jashin was complaining about not meeting a quota. And finally, Kisame was glaring at Deidara, who just kept wiggling his eyebrows, as if they shared an inside joke. Whatever that was.

Pain spoke up, "Naruto, are you ready for your second day of training?"

Naruto nodded.

"It has been brought to our attention that we may have been pushing you too hard, so we agreed to make it a little bit easier for you."

Naruto shook his head, "No, don't go easy on me, I want your full force training."

Izumi appeared concerned, "Are you sure about this Naruto-kun? Because these idiots don't know how to hold back."

Pain agreed, "Yeah, especially with how bad yesterday went, are you sure?"

Naruto nodded, "I'm sure."

Obito piped up, "Just give the boy a chance, he might surprise you."

Deidara couldn't help but comment on this, "Boy? Obito, why are you talking like you're old? You're only in your twenties."

Obito blushed at being called out on it.

Pain cleared his throat cutting off the argument that was bound to happen. "Fine", turning his attention to Naruto, "as you wish, we will not hold back. I hope you are prepared, for we will go all out to try to break you. Kakuzu, you're up first, get him in shape."

Naruto paled at this. He knew that this was going to be painful. But, he had to this to fulfill his promise to Izumi. He had to not only survive his training but excel at it. And so hell began for Naruto.

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 _One year later:_

Standing in the clearing were two figures standing across from each other, settling into their taijutsu forms. The much taller figure with orange hair wore a black cloak with three red clouds on it. He settled into a unique form that focused on solid defense and hard hitting offense. It was possibly one of the most advanced forms of taijutsu, seeing as it required an incredible amount of conditioning to use. The figure was calm and composed. It was a man known as Pain who had gone through a war and lived to tell the tale. His confidence in his abilities were earned.

The average heighted male was a still growing fifteen year old with blonde hair. He had slight whiskers on his cheeks under his bright blue eyes. He was wearing all black clothing that was neither too loose nor too constricting. It looked odd with his bright hair and eyes. He settled into a style of Taijutsu few ninja use that focuses on speed and fluidity to confound opponents on both offense and defense. It used the fingers as piercing instruments instead of punches, and a wide variety of kicks. Despite his young age, the boy, named, Naruto looked very confident.

"Can we get this started old man? I really want to get started on learning some more advanced stuff", complained Naruto.

"I already told you, the fundamentals can be the deadliest weapon for a ninja if applied right."

"Well I know that, but, I also know that there are some people that are impossible to defeat in a head on fight without at least some jutsu", replied Naruto.

Pain sighed, he wasn't sure whether his disciple was smart for realizing this, or dumb for thinking he had to fight everyone head on. This was the argument he had with his disciple every day ever since he had mastered the 'snake strike style'.

"But you don't have to fight them head on if you-"

Pain was cut off when he barely had enough time to turn around block the strike headed for his heart. Pain grimaced, it was a smart trick by Naruto that would have killed any lesser opponent. No sooner had his strike been blocked, that Naruto went for another strike with his other hand. Pain grabbed it just in time. He turned and threw him across the clearing.

Naruto dug his heels into the ground intentionally, causing dust to fly into the air. It hadn't rained recently. For a brief moment Pain couldn't see his opponent, however he quickly sensed the blonde teenager.

"You know that I don't require sight to fight you right?" Pain asked, trying to figure out Naruto's plan.

"I just did it for kicks and giggles"

This made Pain shudder, Naruto never did anything for kicks and giggles. He always had some sort of devious plan going on. Pain got even more on guard. Lucky for him too, a blur of black came into his vision and he barely had enough time to brace himself for the kick to his left side. It broke through his hasty block, opening up Pain to his opponent's mercy.

Naruto took full advantage and got as many strikes in nonlethal spots as possible. Two hand strikes to the chest. A kick to the knee. A hand strike to the arm. A kick to the head. Another hand strike to the gut. One attack led to the next so perfectly that Pain had no chance to even respond, they were just blurs to him. Each hit was incredibly painful due to the speed of them. He knew he would get bruised everywhere and he felt a few of his teeth get kicked out.

'Damn it', he thought, 'I let him use his style in the situation that it was perfect for.'

Naruto went for the final blow, a roundhouse kick to the head. He was just a bit too slow, and Pain caught it.

He grinned with blood making his teeth red, "Payback time."

He delivered a punch to Naruto's prone gut, sending him to hunch over. Pain delivered a quick knee to the head and threw him again across the clearing. Instead of landing gracefully, Naruto rolled a few times violently before coming to a stop.

Naruto felt a violent pain in his gut as the wind was knocked out of him and felt warm liquid gushing out of his now broken nose. He had dirt and blood all over his clothes as well.

With great difficulty he stood up and faced the man who was now running at him to go for the finisher. Pain was incredibly confident that this would be the last move of the spar. Naruto now charged at him as well. Pain pulled back a fist when he was within a meter of its intended target. Pain grinned at the feeling of knowing he would punch the brats lights out. Only he didn't. His punch had swung through midair. And he was lying on the ground. What the hell happened?

He felt a hand on his ankle and realized what happened. Before he could amend it though, a strike from Naruto in the pressure point paralyzed him from the neck down.

"Damn it, you got me", Pain admitted.

Naruto laid down on the ground next to him with his chest heaving and blood dripping down his face. It failed to obscure his shit eating grin. He had gotten his speed, endurance, and strength up to par for Kakuzu. He can evade Deidara for days. And he had the chakra control of a God now (it did help that he was motivated to impress the teacher). The only thing stopping him from moving on to the advanced training was that for months, he had yet to best Pain in hand to hand combat. It was frustrating as hell.

"Finally *breath* beat *breath* you", he managed to get out.

With a pop, the pressure on Pain's ankle disappeared.

With the fight now over, the observers of the fight all came out from the trees they were hiding in.

The first to speak up was a grinning Kisame, "You little bastard. You set up a shadow clone and sent it underground waiting for that moment to trip him up didn't you?"

His answer was a larger grin from Naruto.

The next to speak was Izumi, who ruffled his hair as he still struggled to breathe, "Good job little bro, I'm proud of you for finally beating Pain."

Naruto frowned at the title that Izumi used. He knew she used it often, but it soured his mood every time.

'I don't want to be your little bro though', he thought to himself.

His depressing thoughts were interrupted by Pain, "Well seeing as you beat me, you passed the final area of the basics. You can finally work on the advanced part of the training, which include Sasori with his chakra strings, Izumi and her genjutsu, Konan for stealth, and Kisame for Kenjutsu. However, don't forget that you will still review and train in the basics", reminded Pain.

Naruto nodded, his good mood returned. He got up to do celebratory dance but was stopped due to the pain in his ribs from the punch earlier. He winced in pain.

Izumi went to him panicked at the sight of him hurting and tried to get him to go to the medic. She put her hand on his shoulder for support. But, Naruto refused. "I need to keep training."

"Why do you need to keep training so hard? You need to be strong but you have time. Take it slowly before you injure yourself permanently. Your big sis doesn't want to have to take care of you twenty four-seven, then what will your future wife think of you being taken care of your sister", she tried to tease.

Kisame just face palmed at the mistake she made.

Naruto snapped, "You wouldn't understand why I want to train so hard, because apparently you've forgotten already. I can take care of myself fine, thank you very much, I won't need my 'big sister' in the future."

Izumi stared white faced at Naruto, "Oh", was all she said.

An awkward silence ruled over the ten members of the Akatsuki.

Birds chirping and the breeze were the only noise around in the forest clearing. That is, until Obito spoke up, "Unfortunately, she is partially right, Naruto, you should rest today and then train hard tomorrow."

"But-" Naruto's protests were interrupted by Obito raising a hand.

"However, if you want to do something productive today, then we can at least find out your chakra nature."

"Finally!", Naruto exclaimed, "I've been wanting to learn that ever since you told me about it."

Obito pulled out a chakra paper and explained how it works, "Just send your chakra into this paper and depending on what it does, decides what nature you have. If it rips in half, you have wind nature. If it bursts into flames, you have fire nature. If it dampens up, you have water nature. If it crumples up, you have lightning release. And if it turns into dirt and crumble away, you have earth nature. Based on your father, I would guess you have at least Wind nature", Obito guessed as he gave Naruto the paper.

The rest of the Akatsuki looked intently, curious as to what his nature was. But nothing happened.

Kisame chuckled, "Naruto, you know you're supposed to send chakra into the paper right?"

Naruto furrowed his eyebrows, "I am though."

Kisame rolled his eyes, "here, I'll show you how it's done."

Kisame grabbed the piece of paper from Naruto and sent his chakra into it, immediately it became soaked with water.

Izumi snorted, "wow, Kisame, no wonder you're a virgin. Paper seems to be the only thing you can get wet."

Kisame turned red, which looked weird on his blue skin, trying to think of a comeback but couldn't.

Izumi had a smirk of victory.

"Here Naruto try again", Obito said handing him the paper. Naruto tried again by putting chakra into the paper only for nothing to happen. This time Izumi tested it out and the paper immediately burned.

Naruto tried this five times, and each time failing, only for someone else to show him up.

Finally, Obito had an idea, "Izumi this time activate your **sharingan** as he pumps in chakra to the paper, make sure he's doing it right."

Izumi nodded and obliged. She channeled chakra to her eyes and they turned red with the tri-tomoe. She was watching the now frustrated Naruto do everything as he was supposed to do. After another failed attempt, she shook her head in disbelief, "He's doing everything right."

"And the chakra paper seems to be fine", added Deidara.

"So could it mean…" wondered Konan, her eyes wide in realization.

Pain nodded his head, "I think it means he has no chakra nature preference."

Obito widened his eyes, "I mean , I've heard of having five chakra natures, but to have none, is that even possible?"

Naruto looked disappointed, "Of course it would be me to not have one", he mumbled.

Pain shook his head, "This may be a blessing in disguise, this way you can be well-rounded. Hopefully, all this means is that it would be difficult to teach you the most difficult jutsu from each nature, and we were not going to teach you those anyway. It would just needlessly sap your chakra. Remember-"

Pain was cut off, "Work smarter, not harder", Naruto finished the saying like he heard the saying a thousand times, which he probably had.

Pain spoke to the whole group, "I don't know what this means for Naruto's training or his future as a ninja, or even the cause of his lack of a nature. But, I do know this, we will make him into the strongest ninja since the origin of shinobi history."

This earned a chorus of "hell yeah's" and an exuberance of cheering.

"Now, let's get ready to train our asses off."

Chapter 10 finish

A/N: Sorry it took so long. This month has been a rollercoaster of events and emotions, which I won't go into since you probably won't care. I also hit some writers block, I think. All I know is that I knew where I wanted to go five chapters from now but, I didn't know how to get there. I had flip flopped on the events of this chapter so many times that I had to write a separate one-shot to just get away from this story for a bit (I'm pretty proud of it too). Anyway, here it is and it's a few hundred words longer than usual, so hopefully that'll make up for the wait. Please don't kill me for brother-zoning Naruto, you have to remember that although Naruto did say he would be there for her, Izumi still has issues with losing loved ones and it's not gonna be fixed immediately, that will go into more detail later. I got a complaint about this going too slow so I sped it up a bit. I plan on jumping another three years next chapter to where his training is finished. I hate to do it but I'm done with set up and want to get to actual plot soon. So… sorry for the monster author's note, but this is where I can give my thoughts on the progression of the story and it's not to increase the number of words, I don't give a shit about number of words. Hope you enjoyed and please review.


	11. Chapter 11: Where To Hide A Psychopath

Disclaimer: Don't own anything of importance. You know the drill.

Chapter 11: Where To Hide A Psychopath

 _3 years later (four years after Naruto joins the Akatsuki):_

It was a calm and serene night. The desert night was cool, a stark contrast to the oppressive heat just a few hours prior. A cool breeze travelled over the desert, lightly blowing sand into the air. The full moon shone brightly, lending light to the night sky. Stars could be seen dotting the sky, creating a scene of pure cosmic beauty.

A dark figure quickly dashed across the desert dunes that sloped up and down. Despite the figure appearing to move like a blur, its light footsteps barely disturbed the sand, leaving little to no trail. The only sound emitted from the figure was light breathing that indicated a leisurely pace. But the pace was anything but leisurely, it would have made most ANBU hesitant to even try to keep up for a short period. The dark figure sped across the desert during the beautiful night.

Approaching the top of a particularly tall dune, the figure stopped to see that it was nearing its destination. A large fortress stood proudly in the center of the large flat of the desert before the figure. Tall rock walls surrounded a large inside, the walls were terraced about every fifteen feet providing for easy defenses in the case of an attack. If one looked close enough they could see the shinobi patrolling on the top of the wall, searching for intruders, vigilant for any threat that an enemy could pose.

'Well, except for a few', the figure thought humorously.

The walls were easily two hundred feet tall and concealed most of the village inside, however four openings in the wall served as the only gates inside. The gates were placed at the North, East, West, and South sides of the village, each had so much security that a fly would have trouble getting through. The village, Sunagakure, was a truly fortified village and only a fool would try to infiltrate it.

'Call me a fool then', the figure thought with a smile. The figure pulled back the hood to reveal a handsome young man. He had a tan face that possessed no blemish except for three whiskers on his cheeks. His bright blue eyes and blonde hair that was cut short stood out against the black clothes that he wore. The shape of his face was sharp and mature. He possessed a small grin that was full of confidence as he gazed upon the village in front of him. The man was tall, probably on the verge of six feet, two inches. His form was hidden by the dark clothes, but he was undeniably made of pure lean muscle.

Naruto had grown up.

He flipped his hood back up and continued on his journey to get into the village that was off in the distance. He went at a much slower pace in order to avoid suspicion. He couldn't screw up his first solo mission after all.

 _A few days earlier:_

 _Naruto was called down to the monthly meeting of the Akatsuki members. Usually, it was mostly boring news of the movements of the various villages, and so he usually skipped it, preferring to train instead. However, today he had been told to attend explicitly and he knew he couldn't miss it._

 _He opened the door and entered the same room that he had vowed to help this movement they were planning. Everyone was already sitting down at the conference table. Everyone was whispering hushedly, which was very uncharacteristic of the group before him. Usually, Deidara and Sasori were arguing by now, or Pain would say something stupid and get hit by Konan, or Izumi and Kisame were making smart comments every minute or so. But, there was none of that. Only hushed whispers and a tense atmosphere were present in the room. Naruto frowned at this, he wasn't used to his family being serious for any period of time. It unnerved him._

 _At his presence, they all turned to see him walk towards the table. All eyes were on him and all whispered conversations ceased. His gaze met with Kisame first and both men grinned, happy to see each other._

 _Kisame had become a big brother to Naruto and called him 'onii-chan' to prove it, despite the embarrassment of the shark man. Kisame loved Naruto like a brother and took every opportunity to both mess around and joke with him, the two's kindred spirits ensured that they spent all their free time together. The only time that Kisame was ever harsh was when training with kenjutsu, but Naruto knew that was only tough love._

 _Next Naruto's gaze met with Izumi, whose face lit up like an exploding tag. If possible, Naruto only grinned more. Only, Izumi quickly looked away and frowned, causing him to lose his grin and scrunch his eyes in confusion._

' _Why does she always open up to me and then pull away so quickly?', he thought to himself._

 _He shook his head and sat down in his seat, waiting for someone to signal for the start of this meeting. After a few seconds of waiting, Pain cleared his throat and addressed the group._

" _We have only one objective for today's meeting and it has to do with Naruto, over here", he said indicating to Naruto. He said it oddly serious, which threw Naruto for a loop. "It is proposed that he should start his first mission within the next few days."_

 _Izumi slammed her hands on the table, "And I already told you that it is too soon for Naruto."_

 _Naruto looked confused. So they had already talked about this?_

 _Pain looked weary as he said, "And I've already told you that Konoha's movements indicate that it is moving to go to war. We have to move our plans ahead of schedule in order to make sure it gets carried out before that happens."_

 _Naruto was surprised at this information, but figured it was probably mentioned at one of the meetings that he had skipped._

 _Izumi glared at him, "He's not ready, his training isn't finished yet. He still has yet to master Genjutsu, he could get himself hurt. And I don't want my little brother to be put in danger yet."_

 _Naruto's eyes widened in anger at her calling him 'her little brother'. Naruto was about to blow up at the blatant disrespect of his feelings for her. Kisame sent him a look as if to say that now wasn't the time and Naruto bit his tongue in order to hold back what he was going to say._

" _I hate to say this Izumi, but Naruto can take on any one of us and make it a close fight. I think he is ready for this mission", Kisame said, trying to plead for Naruto's case._

 _Izumi snapped, "You don't even know what this mission is. It's practically suicide."_

 _Kisame calmly looked at her, "No, you're right I don't", he granted, "but, that's what we all signed up for when joining Akatsuki. Even Naruto. Whether you like it or not, he's a big boy who can decide if he wants to try the mission. Right Naruto?" He asked, and Naruto was addressed to speak for the first time in the meeting._

 _Naruto nodded, "Yeah, I can handle whatever you throw at me."_

 _Naruto was grinning on the inside. He loved how awesome his big brother was. He never treated him like he couldn't do anything and always encouraged him to test his limits._

 _Izumi was stifling him though. Don't misunderstand, Naruto's feelings for the black haired kunoichi have only grown in the past three years. However, he had to fulfill his promise to her and become strong. She was trying to protect him too much in order to do that. It only made him irate._

 _Pain nodded, pleased with Naruto's answer, "The mission is that you have to infiltrate Sunagakure and convince the Ichibi jinchuriki to part with his bijuu, similar to how you did. We will provide the fake papers in order to get access inside the village. After that, it is up to you."_

 _Naruto nodded, "Sounds simple enough."_

 _Pain grinned sadistically, "Does it? Did I forget to mention that Sunagakure is practically a fortress and that the jinchuriki is a certifiable psychopath that has killed dozens of people in cold blood?"_

 _Naruto groaned, "Fuck, these things would be nice to mention."_

 _Deidara snickered, "Me and Mr. Wannabe Artist over there would have had that job but looks like you got suckered into it."_

 _Sasori turned, "You wanna go punk. You can't even distinguish real art from the horse shit you call art"_

 _As they started fighting and subsequently creating craters in the room, the important question was asked.'_

" _So Naruto, you up for it?"_

 _Izumi gave him a look that told him not to do it. Normally, he would care deeply about her opinion, but today was different. He had to become a person that she could rely on, one that could never leave her, one that wouldn't only be protected by her, and this was the next step for that._

 _He grinned before enthusiastically saying, "You bet."_

 _Izumi shot him a concerned look but kept her mouth shut._

 _Pain moved the meeting along, "Alright, now that that has been decided, let's discuss the moving of Kirigakure, as far as we know the-"_

 _It was at this point Naruto stopped listening. He knew that his part in the meeting was done and he did not care about the movements of the villages. It was all just confusing politics anyway. Naruto took out a kunai and effortlessly lit the blade on fire with his chakra. He stared at the wisps of the flame a few moments before getting bored. He then stopped flowing his chakra in, and the flames disappeared. He then sent another burst of chakra to the kunai and electricity arced through and around the blade. He soon got bored with that too, and he quickly switched to wind chakra, then to earth chakra, and then to water, and back to fire._

 _This seemed to entertain the young man for a little time, until he got stopped by a stink eye from Konan. Knowing not to mess with the blue haired woman, Naruto stopped and at least pretended to pay attention. Kisame just shook his head at the nonchalance at which Naruto just masterfully manipulated the elements like it was no big deal. Then again, he knew how hard he worked for it. Having no chakra nature made learning any chakra manipulation difficult. The only reason that Naruto had this level of mastery was his now god-like control and sheer hard work._

 _After a mind numbing hour, the meeting was finally adjourned and Naruto practically burst out of the room. He was intending to go train due to the excess energy he now had in his system along with his excitement for the new mission. He was stopped by a certain black eyed someone before leaving._

" _Naruto, I want to speak to the whirlpools", she stated after tugging on his elbow. It was their code saying that she wanted to speak to him. Alone._

 _He nodded, knowing that she would try to talk him out of the mission. He didn't want to have this conversation, but knew it was inevitable. He lead the two of them to an empty hallway that no one ever went near. When they got there, he turned around to face her._

 _The now twenty two year old woman hadn't changed that much in the past four years. Except , she became only more beautiful in the eyes of Naruto. Her pale skin and dark mid-length hair contrasted perfectly. Her angular face made her look like a goddess. Her striking black eyes seemed to see through his walls and pierce through his soul. She still had lean muscle and had the graceful movements of a proud large cat. She was powerful and deadly, it made her all the more beautiful._

 _Naruto realized that he was staring at her for a rather long time and nervously scratched the back of his head as he looked away. He hoped that she wouldn't call him out on it, but knew she wouldn't resist the opportunity to tease him. She was glaring at him very she opened her mouth he flinched, "Don't do it."_

 _What? Do what?_

' _Oh yeah, the mission. Damn it, I got distracted. Stupid hormones', he thought._

 _He sighed, "You know I have to."_

" _No, you don't. This mission could be done by practically anyone but you", she said in a deceptively controlled voice._

" _Yes, but this is what I have been training for over the past four years."_

" _And I still say you're not ready."_

 _He rubbed his temples in annoyance, "Izumi, I've hit a plateau and you know it. I can't get any better without any practical fight experience. This is a chance to get stronger, and I need to do it."_

" _No, you don't. As Kisame said, you could probably take on any of us. I'd say you are plenty strong at the moment."_

 _He shook his head, "No, I still can't protect all of my precious people yet. I may be able to best most people in a fair fight. But life isn't fair and I need to be able to walk away from even the most impossible odds", he said. And he added in a whisper, "Or else I won't be able to keep my promise to you."_

 _Apparently she heard him as her eyes widened in surprise. Her expression seemed to soften. She shook her head, "Naruto, have you been pushing yourself for my sake. All this time?"_

 _He nodded slowly._

 _In a whisper she asked, "Why?"_

 _Naruto walked closer to her and put an arm on her shoulder. Her skin was warm and the contact shocked him. It was like there was a charge between the flesh of the two individuals. It was so invigorating and special, yet at the same time it felt natural. Like his hands were meant to touch her._

 _He mentally shook his head at that thought. He couldn't go down that rabbit hole because it always took his mind places they shouldn't go, and that only served to frustrate him._

" _Because you have dealt with enough loss in the past. I refuse to become just another heartache you have to deal with. I want to be there with you, for you, and because of you", he paused. Should he say it? Or not? Whatever, he was going on a mission and if he didn't make it back he would have regrets otherwise._

 _He wrapped her in a hug. He felt her small, warm frame up against him and he had to keep himself from sighing in bliss._

" _And because I love you", he said simply._

 _He pulled back slightly and looked at her face. She looked shocked at his declaration. And then a smile adorned her face and it took his breath away. She had a look of pure love in her eyes as she looked up at him. He smiled softly, happy that his confession was so well received. He let himself feel a bit of hope that it was requited._

 _All until a look of fear broke out on her face. It was pure, unadulterated terror. And it was directed at him. Tears slowly found their way into her eyes as she started shaking her head. She pushed him away and started backing up slowly._

" _I can't", she said in a whimper, as she turned around and ran from the young man who held affections for her._

 _She left a desolate blonde standing in the same spot since the conversation. He was broken. His heart shattered. He felt empty. He felt not good enough. Tears started pouring down his face and his face scrunched up in anguish._

 _He stayed like that, standing and crying silently, for twenty minutes before bitter feelings took place inside of his heart._

' _I should have known. There was never a chance, I was always just a little kid to her. That little annoying brat who thought that always thought they were closer than they actually were. I'm just a kid who put blinders on to all of the signs of the obvious, only to cling on to an impossible hope. She was probably scared of me for what I had inside of me. That would explain that look of fear, she had probably been afraid of me this whole time and I haven't noticed. Just my luck, I fall for a girl who's not only out of my league, but is scared of me. Fuck my life'_

 _Naruto finally started moving and went to his room to pack. He would leave for the mission immediately and avoid Izumi, since she was scared of him. He liked her too much to cause her pain by being near her at the moment._

 _So, he packed his things and left a note telling his plans for leaving for the mission. He left the base, looking back at the place he had called home for four years. He would miss it, but odds are, he would be back in a week or so. And so, he turned and ran. Ran away from his home. Ran away from his problems. And ran away from the girl who would never love him._

Back to present, outside of Sunagakure:

Naruto was nearing the entrance to the village. He looked up again to see the beautiful sky.

'Izumi would love this, she always did like the moon'

The thought of her mentally shook him, but he recovered as soon as he got to the gate of the large village.

The guard was a young teenager, most likely a chunin by the way he carried himself. He still stiff and sloppy in his movements, but was more confident than a mere genin. The chunin eyed Naruto carefully, as if sensing that there was something off about the man trying to gain access into the village.

"Do you have the necessary papers?" The guard said in a comically deep voice. As if he was trying to intimidate, only to fail poorly. Naruto would have rolled his eyes, had he not been so nervous.

Naruto simply handed him the papers he had gotten from Pain. His hands were shaking and the guard smirked, convinced that he was the cause. In fact, he was more nervous of the two hundred other shinobi, currently on the wall, eyeing him like a hawk. He could take them all without a scratch, but he didn't want to cause an international incident…yet.

The chunin eyed his documents and looked at the man who was so covered up in clothes and a hood, that his skin couldn't be seen. "So, you're from Konoha, now are you?"

"Yeah", technically it wasn't wrong.

"How come you're not wearing your headband protector, ever since the new Hokage, all of the leaf shinobi have so much damn nationalism that it's considered blasphemy to not display it proudly."

Naruto drew a blank with this one. He had never remembered it being that strict in Konoha, since he had left. And who was this new Hokage?

He scrambled for an excuse, "I lost it in a fight ", he said simply. He wanted to smack himself for his stupidity.

The chunin eyed him incredulously, "And yet there's not a scratch on you."

Naruto could see him tense and couldn't help but glance in the direction of the ninja on the wall. He had dug himself into some deep shit.

"Yeah, I'm really good," Naruto said, trying to come up with a usable excuse. Lying was never his strong suit.

The chunin raised his eyebrow, "Apparently not good enough to keep track of your headband", he said, making Naruto tense slightly. "Whatever, just come in and don't make trouble", the chunin said with a sigh and handed back the documents.

Naruto released a breath that he had been holding and smiled at the chunin. He graciously took the papers and started heading into the gate. Fast enough to get the hell out of there, but slow enough not to raise suspicion.

'Although, too late for that', thought Naruto. He had noticed the chunin talking to an older man and guessed that he had been informed of a certain suspicious fellow.

'Great, not even five minutes in and shit is already hitting the fan.'

Naruto made it at the village and was amazed. Despite it being night, the sandy streets were busy and packed with people. Lanterns were hanging up and down the streets, illuminating the whole city. Stalls and vendors trying to sell exotic items were on all of the streets. A large spherical building with the kanji for wind on it was in the center of the village. All in all, everything was incredibly impressive.

'Now, that I'm inside', he thought, 'if I were a village, where would I hide a psychopath murderer?'

Chapter 11 finish

A/N: Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. And the actual plot begins! Please review, tell me if you like the direction it's going.


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